The Emperor of Everything

Chapter 13

Corean took her assassin back to the Jolly Roger in silence. Marmo, who had waited for her in Yubere’s negotiation facility, spoke to her only in monosyllables, and if she hadn’t believed that Marmo had long ago worn out his store of such human emotions, Corean might have thought Remint had frightened the old cyborg.

When they reached their rooms, Lensh seemed openly distressed by the slayer’s ominous presence; his feline features constantly wavered between cringing disapproval and outrage.

She found Yubere’s brother more than a little intimidating herself, so much so that she couldn’t be very irritated with the reactions of the others.

She directed Remint to a corner ottoman, where he sat quietly, staring into space, a machine waiting for its instructions.

Her most urgent need then was a bath. Perhaps she only imagined it, but she still smelled the subtle Gench taint she had noticed in Yubere’s stronghold, as if those alien molecules were clinging to her with unnatural tenacity.

She lingered in the warm bath, thinking aimless thoughts. She noticed the slight dryness of her perfect skin, her need for a manicure. After a while she rubbed a soapy sponge across her breasts, and she became aware of a dull sexual ache. She had, after all, been away from her various erotic pets for several days now; her growing frustration was natural enough. Perhaps she would send out for a brace of joyfolk later; the Jolly Roger kept several well-regarded catering firms under contract. She considered summoning Lensh to service her immediately, but as a lover he was uninteresting. Like most folk with substantial feline DNA adulteration, Lensh tended to mate in a brief, brutal, matter-of-fact manner — which at the moment held no appeal for Corean.

For a moment she considered the slayer — how would it be to lie in such inhumanly strong arms? She dismissed the notion with a tiny shiver. She was feeling unadventurous tonight — unusual for her.

Something turned her thoughts to Ruiz Aw. A perversely wishful mood came over her, so that she lay back in a swirl of sweet-scented heat, and remembered how much she had once lusted for Ruiz Aw’s handsome flesh.

She cupped her hands around her small breasts, and stroked her thumbs across the soap-slick points of her nipples. After the Moc had almost killed Ruiz, she had sent him to the rooms where she was keeping the Pharaohan woman. Those rooms were equipped with the standard surveillance cameras, of course, and she recalled the times she had watched the two of them rutting in the woman’s silk-covered bed.

Corean slid her hands down her belly, and her fingers moved in a languid rhythm. Ruiz Aw had been lovely to watch, and the woman too — Corean had looked forward so much to having them… until the woman had half killed a valuable property, until Ruiz Aw had stolen her boat and cargo. She had desired them both fiercely. She had put off the moment of consummation, so that the anticipation might sweeten her pleasure. She had waited just a bit too long.

But they’d been so pretty, Ruiz and the Pharaohan — the two bodies entwined, pleasing each other in all the ways a man and woman could.

Images of their artful couplings filled her memory, and her fingers moved more quickly.

For all her rage, she still wanted him. If by some miracle Remint had at that instant brought Ruiz into her bathroom, she would have made him satisfy her, over and over. She arched her back, so that her pelvis rose from the water. She threw her head back, and felt the first clenching spasms begin.

She thought: and then, when Ruiz Aw’s strength was all gone, she would make him die.

She came, shuddering with the culmination of that joyful fantasy.

Later, composed and cold with determination, Corean went in to instruct her slayer in his task.

“Listen, Remint,” she said. “There is a man called Ruiz Aw who is my enemy. He is a dangerous man with dangerous knowledge. We believe he is still here in SeaStack. It is your job to seek him out and render him helpless. You must adhere to these priorities: Ideally, you will bring him to me alive. Failing that, you must kill him and bring me his head or other indisputable evidence of his death. Do you understand?”

Remint nodded once, a sharp decisive gesture. The intensity of his attention was almost unnerving, Corean thought. But she continued. “There are other and somewhat less urgent elements to your task. Three slaves belonging to me were stolen by Ruiz Aw. I want them back, if recapturing them will not jeopardize your most important task: the capture or killing of Ruiz Aw.”

She waited for a fairly long time, before she realized that he wasn’t going to ask any questions unprompted.

“What do you need to know to begin your work?” she asked.

It was as if some powerful engine started spinning behind his stony eyes; they flared with purpose and, to her surprise, something approximating intelligence. “First,” he said. “Tell me everything you know or surmise about this man.”

Ruiz paced slowly back and forth across the thick carpet in the suite Publius had conducted him to. “I keep it for impressing merchant princes,” Publius had said with an expansive gesture that took in the various luxurious appointments. “Call if you need anything.” He had waited a moment for a response, then shrugged and left.

Ruiz had hardly noticed; he was too busy trying to think of some way to ensure his continued existence. How could he avoid doing Publius’s dirty work? He attempted to review his alternatives, but was depressed to discover that he could find none. Publius had him, and somehow he was certain that Publius wasn’t bluffing when he said he didn’t care anymore about the scrap of information Ruiz held against him. Escape from Publius seemed unlikely. After all, Publius had great respect for his violent skills; presumably he had taken adequate precautions against any attempt Ruiz might make to fly the coop.

For hours, Ruiz wrestled with the problem. Obviously Publius did not intend for him to long survive his mission — that much Ruiz could take for granted. But what possible leverage could he develop to use against Publius?

He considered the potential sources of leverage.

Honorable folk could be bound by promises; Publius would promise him everything and it would mean nothing.

He was in no position to employ fear; Publius would laugh at his threats, and rightly so.

Could he somehow use the dribble of information Publius had divulged? The idea had possibilities, but he was morosely certain that Publius would never let him near a data-stream terminal — the one in his suite had been hurriedly removed by two of the monster-maker’s technicians. And to whom could he confide his damaging story, who would keep it safe until and unless Ruiz failed to return? His only friends on Sook were locked up in a slave pen. It occurred to him that he should have spent a little more time on devising a safe place for them to hide. But at the time, he had been sure that Corean would be hot on his trail — and the matter had seemed urgent.

Greed seemed the best possibility. How could he divert the torrent of Publius’s greed into a useful channel, use it to drive the turbines of Ruiz’s own purposes?

He shook his head, as if to shake loose the cobwebs of distraction. He sat down and stretched overly tight muscles. Now was a time for clear thinking, if ever there was one. He took a deep breath, composed himself.

First, what did Publius value? His reputation was evidently not as important to Publius as it once had been. His labs, of course, but Ruiz could see no way to hold that huge facility hostage without assistance. His monsters, his employees? No… Publius had often declared that no one in the universe is irreplaceable — except, of course, Publius.

What else, then? Was there some essential core to Publius’s business that Ruiz could affect single-handed?

He wondered: Did Publius own a Gench? The more he considered the idea, the more likely it seemed. The puppet Publius proposed to substitute for Alonzo Yubere had undergone deconstruction; had it happened in Publius’s own labs? Possibly. If so, was Publius sufficiently eager for Ruiz’s services to risk the Gench as a hostage? I suppose, Ruiz thought, it depends on how much of a gambler Publius is, and on how he rates my chances of success. Presumably Publius hoped to gain access to a larger number of Gencha, if he supplanted Yubere — but if Ruiz failed, Publius would have no Gencha at all. Maybe Publius owned two Gencha — he was probably wealthy enough.

If so, perhaps he would consent to risk one of them.

It didn’t seem enough. What else could he ask for, especially if, as was probable, Publius refused to give him a Gench?

Nothing came to him. He pounded his fists against his forehead, in panicky frustration. What could he do? There must be something; he refused to believe that he was no more than a tool that Publius could pick up, use, and discard. Besides, others depended on him, and on his resourcefulness.

Much as he tried to focus all his attention on the problem of controlling Publius, distracting thoughts kept creeping into his mind.

And all of them concerned Nisa.

Eventually, he dimmed the lights and lay on the bed and forced his body to relax. Perhaps he was too tired to be clever, he thought, and so he willed himself toward sleep.

Remint interrogated Corean to exhaustion, and the process revealed how little she really knew about Ruiz Aw. She found the process unpleasant, but Remint was relentless, and she could not order him to desist without blunting his effectiveness.

What in fact did she know about Ruiz Aw? She knew how he looked, how he moved, how he sounded. She knew that he was a skillful slayer, ruthlessly decisive. To some extent she understood the basis for his almost-pathological self-confidence — or what appeared to be self-confidence. She knew he could be charming. He was an excellent liar, and she was beginning to believe that he had lied to her under the probe… and that he was much more than a freelance slave poacher. How could anyone as effective as Ruiz Aw exist in such obscure circumstances?

Who was he, really… and why had he chosen to inflict himself on her?

The trend of Remint’s investigations veered to the matter of Ruiz Aw’s affiliations. Remint asked a hundred questions about Ruiz’s first escape attempt through the marinarium belonging to Corean’s neighbor, the Farelord Preall.

Eventually Corean grew impatient, and asked, “Do you think he had help? Do you think he’s part of a hostile organization?”

Remint sat back and did not answer immediately.

“Well?” she demanded.

“He had no help; such is my opinion, based on feeble data. He is simply very good, and very lucky.”

Corean looked at the slayer curiously. “You believe in luck? Strange. How can that be?”

Remint shrugged. “How else do you explain the hidden mechanisms of the universe? The fate that spared my brother and destroyed me?” He seemed uninterested in the matter; it was simply an illustrative example, and Corean felt a chilly unease. “In answer to your second question, I believe he was sent by some organization, though perhaps not one specifically hostile to you. He may be a League agent — since they own the world where you’ve been poaching slaves.”

Corean was horrified. “But, he carried no death net! How could he have been League.”

Remint assumed a didactic tone. “In the first place, not all League agents carry the net; this notion is a carefully nurtured myth, designed by the League to intimidate their enemies. In the second place, the nets can be successfully tampered with — not removed, but slowed. From your description of the events at the launch ring, I think it conceivable that Ruiz Aw suffered a partially triggered net at that time.

“But all this is beside the point. Ruiz Aw is presently operating without any outside assistance, in my opinion.

“Now,” said Remint, regaining that lambent intensity. “Tell me about the other slaves he escaped with.”

So she did. He allowed her no privacy, he wanted to know everything, including her plans for Ruiz and the Pharaohan woman Nisa. As she described what she now perceived as her mindless lust, Remint betrayed no sign of disapproval or scorn or titillation, which further reinforced his inhumanity.

Then he asked her about Flomel, and what the mage had told her of Ruiz Aw’s activities since the escape. Then he asked Marmo about Deepheart, and Marmo silently handed the slayer a charged dataslate showing the results of Marmo’s earlier search of the datastream.

Hours later, he abruptly stopped asking questions. He sat back and a veil seemed to fall over his face — it was as if he had stepped out of his body and gone elsewhere.

Corean waited with what equanimity she could summon, but another hour passed before Remint spoke again.

And all he said was: “I see.”

A vast annoyance filled Corean. “So what now, mighty Remint? What will you do with all the weighty conclusions you’ve reached?”

He looked at her, expressionless. “I’ve reached no conclusions,” he said.

“No? Well then, what’s your plan? Will you organize an attack on Deepheart?”

“Premature,” said Remint. “First I must interview your slave Flomel.”

“Why? I’ve told you everything he knows about Ruiz.”

“No, you’ve told me everything he told you about Ruiz. It’s unlikely that these are identical bodies of knowledge.”

“Go, then,” she said, getting up and moving toward her bedroom. “Lensh will take you to the pen.”

As it almost always was, Ruiz’s sleep was dreamless, but his mind must have continued to chew at the problem of controlling Publius, because when he woke, it was with a glimmer of a plan.

He tapped at the flatscreen communit; it came to life. One of Publius’s more subtle monsters appeared, a woman with a curiously elongated body. Her eyes had large violet pupils surrounded with glowing red sclera. It was Ruiz’s theory that each of Publius’s monsters contained an equal portion of grotesqueness; this one evidently carried most of her strangeness within.

“Yes?” she said.

“I’d like to see Publius now,” Ruiz said.

“I’ll send a guide. Publius left orders that you were to be brought to him without delay, whenever you requested it.”

The guide was an eel-thin woman with gray elastic skin and the face of a predatory fish. She wore a bubbler over her gills and spoke through a vocalizer. “Come with me,” she ordered, and said nothing else.

Publius was working in his personal lab, bent over a microsurgery unit. An infant lay anesthetized on a tray, the skin on one side of its face peeled back; Publius was carving at the baby’s facial musculature, using resonating laser pinbeams.

Ruiz choked back his revulsion and waited until Publius finished and turned the closing over to the machine.

“I do a little freehand work, from time to time,” said Publius. “It keeps me from becoming overly dependent on the tech, keeps my fingers bloody, so to speak.”

“Let’s talk about this job you want me to do,” said Ruiz.

“Certainly. Have you devised a way of reinforcing my promises?” Publius seemed vastly amused, as if he was certain that no matter how clever Ruiz was, Publius would be able to thwart him.

“Not a completely satisfactory one. But first, tell me how exactly you intend to get me offworld.”

Publius shrugged. “I’d intended to retain my flexibility, Ruiz. You know me, a creature of opportunity. I’ll do whatever seems best, at the time.”

Ruiz gave him a wry look. “Unsatisfactory. I must ask you to be more specific, Publius.”

Publius drummed his fingers impatiently on the infant’s gurney. “All right, all right, if you must be so compulsively suspicious, I’ll tell you what I had in mind — though I must say your attitude is rather unfriendly.”

Ruiz laughed sourly. What could he answer?

“When you return, Ruiz, crowned with success, I propose to cash in a favor owed to me by one of the pirate lords. He will transport you to one of the Shard platforms, where you can get commercial transport back to Dilvermoon.”

Ruiz frowned. “So, now I must trust not only you but some starpirate? I’m not reassured.”

Publius made an exasperated sound. “Really, you try my patience with your endless suspicions. Well then, if you cannot trust me, I will offer to wear madcollars with you, and accompany you up to the platform and into Shard jurisdiction.”

Ruiz had not expected Publius to make so bold a suggestion. Madcollars were a fairly effective trucial technology. Two persons forced to devise a way to trust each other for short periods would each don explosive collars, which could be activated by an impulse from the hand controllers each held. However, if one wearer lost his head or otherwise perished, the other’s collar would instantly explode. They were equipped with volitional filters, so that they could not be activated against the wearer’s will. Once the collars were locked on, they could only be removed by mutual consent. Their major limitation was that they were short-range devices; distance or the interposition of a suitably massive object rendered them useless.

“You would wear them with me now?” Ruiz asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I have great faith in your skills — you know this — but you are after all undertaking a very dangerous piece of work.”

“Ah,” said Ruiz. “So the problem remains — how can I trust you until I’ve done the job?”

Publius shrugged. “It’s your problem, Ruiz. Didn’t your night of scheming birth any plans?”

“I’m not sure. Tell me, do you own a Gench?”

Publius’s face curdled slightly, as though he had bitten into an astringent fruit. “Yes. What of it?”

“More than one?”

“Yes, yes. Three, in fact, though one is almost moribund and one barely trained.”

“Ah. Excellent,” said Ruiz, feeling a slight degree of hope. “Then here is my proposal: Allow one of your Gench to accompany me, wearing a madcollar with me. I’ll rely on your cupidity; even you aren’t rich enough to throw away a Gench. When we return, I’ll unlock the Gench as soon as you’re locked with me, and everyone will be safe and happy.”

“Absurd!” barked Publius. “Why would I risk so major a portion of my fortune?” His face filled with a snarling anger, but as Ruiz had hoped, a duplicitous gleam flickered behind his eyes.

“Because you have such great faith in my skills.”

Publius fumed and shouted for fifteen minutes, but in the end, he agreed to lend Ruiz his youngest and least valuable Gench.

And Ruiz was thankful that Publius’s vast arrogance had caused him to underestimate Ruiz’s subtlety.

When Lensh returned with Remint from their visit to Flomel in the pen, the pilot seemed to have gotten over his initial fear.

“Good news,” he called, bouncing into the suite. “Guess who we found?”

Remint stepped forward swiftly and took Lensh by the arm, gave him a shake that rattled his teeth. “Shut up, beast,” he said. “I will inform; this is how I choose to perform my duties.” There was no emotion in that pronouncement, just a cold intensity.

Corean shivered, but she kept her face as expressionless as Remint’s. “What did you find?”

“We found your other slaves,” said Remint. “I conclude that Ruiz Aw is no longer in Deepheart; your slave Flomel made statements that support this conclusion.”

Corean couldn’t help smiling. “Good news, indeed. And what did Flomel say?”

“He reports that the others are convinced that Ruiz Aw has abandoned them to the slave market. My assessment is that this is likely.”

“I was right,” Corean said to Marmo. “You see, he’s a lot like me… but I’m far more intelligent. How should we proceed?”

Remint regarded her stonily. “My hypothesis is that he is unlikely to return for his profits; no doubt he has made arrangements to receive his funds remotely, if at all. Unless I can obtain access to the others — so that I can put them under brainpeel — or unless we can coerce the pen into cooperation, the trail ends there.”

Corean sat on the couch and looked up at Remint. “I don’t think we can get the pen to help us — their business depends on their reputation for incorruptibility. So, we’ll take the others. Let’s buy them, though it galls me to pay out good money for things I already own.”

Remint gave his head a single negative shake. “Not possible. Ruiz Aw has placed a hold order on them for a week — I checked with the management.”

Marmo stirred. “Perhaps he intends to return for them, after all.”

“Unlikely,” said Remint. “Probably he hopes to thwart our investigations until the trail has grown cold.”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Corean. “So, we must take them from the pen by force.”

Marmo floated forward and protested. “Corean! You’ll bring the pirate lords down on us. Your passion for revenge is out of hand; please, come to your senses!”

Corean turned to him and spoke in a deadly voice. “Marmo, you don’t understand the issues here. The matter has gone far beyond personal vengeance now; our survival is at stake. Remint, see to it.”

He nodded, and turned to leave. “Come, Lensh,” he said. “We must hire some firewood; we will need decoys.”

Lensh turned pleading eyes to Corean, but she looked back impassively. He hung his head and left.

Six hours later, Remint returned, leading the four dazed Pharaohans, who were chained together in a coffle. Flomel looked up with haunted eyes, recognized her, and cried out. “Lady Corean. I’m so happy to see you. Can you get me out of these chains. Your man was most disrespectful.”

Remint backhanded Flomel, and the sound of the blow was shockingly loud. Flomel fell back, mouth bloody and eyes huge.

He handed the leash to Corean. “Shall I see to renting a brainpeeler now?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “But be careful with the peeler — I don’t want them damaged. Where’s Lensh?”

“He allowed himself to be captured by the pen security forces. I killed him before they could take him away.”

When Remint was through with the brainpeeler, the Pharaohans were led away to a cage set up in one of the guest bedrooms. Remint came to Corean and made his report.

“We were both wrong, in my judgment,” he said. “Ruiz Aw intends to return for them. He told them he was putting them in as safe a place as he could find, that he would find transport for all of them offplanet. They’re not entirely convinced that he will return — not even the woman is completely sure of him — but I don’t doubt he will be back for them.” Remint paused, then spoke on. “Ruiz Aw has become infected with soft feelings. They will be his downfall, as they were mine.”

Corean studied his expressionless face, fascinated and repulsed. Remint betrayed no scorn or self-pity; apparently his brother had permitted Remint to keep no human feelings except the hatred he bore Yubere.

“What do you advise?” she asked.

“I left misleading clues at the pen; these will allow us to be traced to a remote location. I will keep this location under surveillance.” Remint drew back his sleeve, to reveal a small flatscreen vid strapped to his massive wrist. “When the pirate lords arrive, I will permit them to continue down a false trail. When Ruiz Aw traces us, I will attempt to capture or kill him.”

Corean nodded, impressed by Remint’s scheme. “A reasonable plan. How long must we wait?”

“He put a one-week prepaid hold on them. Therefore we should wait no more than six days, as he left them yesterday. He might come for them at any time, but my guess is that it will take several days, under the worst of circumstances. He’ll have no easy time finding a way out of SeaStack, at present.”

She laughed delightedly. “Good, good. I should have time to get them processed at Yubere’s before he comes for them. How nice. You take them to Yubere now, then pursue your plan.”