Star of Gypsies (49 page)

"Certainly," I said. "I see no problem with that at all."

"Then we understand one another?"

"Perfectly," I said.

He rose and poured the wine of farewell for me. I came forward to accept it, and took a close look at him as I did. I had been noticing something odd about him, the last few minutes, and I wanted to check it out at close range.

It had seemed to me that he was flickering about the edges, so to speak. Losing definition, a little. I wasn't sure of it; but as well as I was able to tell from the distance where I was required to sit, the Sixteenth was having some trouble keeping the boundaries of his corpus firm. That is of course a characteristic of doppelgangers: they are always plausible duplicates of the human beings from whom they are generated, but they are in a steady state of degeneration from the moment they are struck off the mold, and the keen eye can spot it sometimes, very subtle though the effect will be in the early stages.

Had I been talking to a doppelganger of the emperor all this time? Sitting there sipping his wine and staring into his eyes and playing little political fencing-matches with him, and the whole while I had been dealing with a mere simulacrum, while the authentic Sixteenth-scared out of his wits by the fear of assassination, even an unthinkable assassination at the hands of the Rom king himself-was hiding somewhere out of sight, monitoring the whole thing by cortex wire, maybe even running a relay that told the doppelganger what to say? Jesu Cretchuno Moischel and Abraham! What an absurdity! What an insult!

If it was true. I peered close, but I couldn't tell. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing. Maybe the flicker had been in my eyes and not in the emperor's edges. At any rate I didn't have any way of poking and prodding to find out; I had to take my little sip of wine and get myself down from the platform.

"Well?" Polarca asked. "How did it go?"

"About as I expected. The pompous little shit: he really thinks he's emperor. The funny thing is, so do I think he is. But there was one damned strange thing."

"What was that?"

I told him that I thought I might have been having an audience with a doppelganger-emperor the whole time. Polarca clapped his hands and laughed.

"If that isn't just like Periandros!" he cried. "Did he think you had a bomb in your mustache? He really wants to live forever, doesn't he?"

"I think he wants to live long enough to get Sunteil and Naria to agree that he's really the emperor," I said.

"I don't think anybody's going to live that long," Polarca said. He shook his head. "A doppelganger! Can you beat that!"

"I'm not totally sure, you understand."

"But it's just like him. It absolutely is. What do you think, will he send a doppelganger to this big grand reconsecration ceremony of yours too? If anyone's going to try to assassinate him, that would be a fine place to do it."

"And take out everybody within ten meters of him too," I said.

Polarca scowled. "Maybe you'd better send a doppelganger to the ceremony too, eh, Yakoub?"

BUT THE GREAT RECONSECRATION CEREMONY NEVER did take place. And Periandros learned that no matter how many doppelgangers he tried to hide behind, a really determined and creative assassin would somehow be able to find him. It happened just three days after my audience with him: a homing wasp, in his bath, a diabolical little artificial insect that flew straight for its goal and killed him so fast that he died with the soap still in his hand. You can use doppelgangers for lots of things, but not to take your baths for you.

A few hours later, before I had heard anything about the tragic event in the imperial bath-chamber, the starship
Jewel of the Imperium
landed at the Capital bearing a most distinguished passenger: no less than Lord Sunteil, who was returning with remarkably fine timing after having spent the past few months in exile, or, if you prefer, in hiding. (Yes, that same Supernova-class
Jewel of the Imperium
that had taken me from Xamur to Galgala when I went to have things out with Shandor. The pilot of which was Petsha le Stevo of Zimbalou and whose captain, by a remarkable coincidence, was the dapper Therione, a native of Sunteil's very own world of Fenix.)

The first thing that Lord Sunteil did upon his arrival at the Capital was to proclaim himself emperor, news having reached him with surprising swiftness that Periandros was no longer among the living. In measured words Sunteil expressed his grief over the passing of the late Lord Periandros, whom he did not refer to as the Sixteenth Emperor. He himself, he declared, was the Sixteenth Emperor. And he had held that title, he said, ever since the instant of the Fifteenth's death, although he had been unfortunately detained all this while on urgent imperial business in the Haj Qaldun system and had been unable until now to give his personal attention to the problems of the central government.

The second thing that Lord Sunteil did upon his arrival at the Capital was to run desperately for cover.

He had just finished proclaiming his imperial authority when a detachment of imperial troops arrived to arrest him. Sunteil managed to clear out of the starport barely ahead of them and vanished back into hiding somewhere south of the city. Somehow, though he had been able to ascertain with such surprising swiftness that Lord Periandros had perished that day in a lamentable accident in the privacy of his palace, Sunteil had failed to discover one other significant datum, which was that his rival Lord Naria had been secretly on hand at the Capital for quite some time and that Naria-or the Sixteenth Emperor, as Naria preferred us all to call him-had quietly succeeded in winning the support of a substantial portion of the imperial military forces. While Sunteil was still making self-congratulatory speeches at the starport, Naria had taken possession of the imperial palace and was accepting the homage of the peers of the Imperium, who were nothing if not obliging, though I imagine they were becoming a trifle confused.

A little later on that remarkable day, which I'm certain will provide stimulating challenges to historians for centuries to come, the late Lord Periandros made an unexpected reappearance on the imperial communications channel. The reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated, he informed us. He was even now as heretofore the Sixteenth Emperor and he called upon all loyal citizens to denounce the lies of the criminal Lord Sunteil and the vile intrusion upon the imperial palace of the criminal Lord Naria.

In short, the fat was in the fire, the shit had hit the fan, and there were altogether too many cooks in the kitchen, which was sure to spoil the broth. Periandros' simple little coup d'etat had given way to a three-cornered civil war.

Fragmentary reports on all this began to reach my palace at the Capital about midday. The first thing we heard was Sunteil's starport speech, telling us that Periandros was dead and he was in charge. Polarca, Damiano, Jacinto and I sat transfixed in front of the screen, trying to comprehend what was going on. Abruptly Sunteil's speech was interrupted and the camera cut to the imperial palace, to the great council-chamber of the emperor. We were treated to a close-up shot of the defunct Lord Periandros lying in state. He was wrapped from throat to toes in glittering brocaded robes, but the camera lingered a long while on his face, and it was unmistakably the face of Periandros. He appeared to be quite authentically dead.

Troublesome sounds of warfare now could be heard in the streets outside: sirens and whistles, booms and crashes.

"I don't like any of this," Polarca said. He kept blurring. I knew that he was ghosting compulsively, as he always did when he became tense. Hopping around wildly through the epochs and the light-years, but absent no more than a hundredth of a second at a time from the present. "We ought to get ourselves out of here, Yakoub," he said between hops. "These crazy Gaje are going to wipe each other out and we're right in the middle of it all."

"Wait," I said. "Sunteil's clever enough to get things under control fast. He's probably trying to round up all of Periandros' Akrakikan loyalists, and then-"

"Look," Damiano said in a strangled-sounding voice, pointing to the screen.

And there was the flamboyant face of Lord Naria, suddenly, purple skin and scarlet hair and cold, cold, cold blue eyes, telling us that
he
was the true Sixteenth, accept no substitutes, and all was well.

"Yakoub-" said Polarca, ghosting like a madman.

A robot came rolling into the room. "A man at the gate, claiming sanctuary," it announced. "Shall we admit him?"

Damiano laughed harshly. "Probably Sunteil, looking for a place to hide."

"He gives his name as Chorian of Fenix," said the robot blandly.

"
Chorian
?" I hit the control and brought up the gate scanner image. Yes, indeed, it was Chorian out there, looking flushed and sweaty and frightened. He seemed to be alone. He was trying to press himself as close to the impervious skin of the gate as he could. I sent the robots out to bring him in.

"Check him for concealed weapons," Polarca called.

"Don't you think that's going too far?" said Damiano.

"This is a crazy day. Anybody might do anything. What if he's here to assassinate Yakoub?"

Damiano turned to me in appeal. "For God's sake, Yakoub, if the boy had meant to kill you, wouldn't he have done it on Mulano?"

"Check him all the same," I said. "It can't do any harm. Polarca's right: this is a crazy day."

But the craziness was only beginning, then.

Chorian-duly frisked and otherwise processed-was admitted to my presence a few minutes later. He was a pitiful sight: wild-eyed, trembling, exhausted. I summoned one of my medics, who calmed him down.

"Thank God you're safe," he said, practically in tears. "You can't imagine what's going on out there."

"What are you doing at the Capital?" I asked.

"I came in with Sunteil on the
Jewel of the Imperium
. There was an attack-at the starport-imperial troops, a whole horde of them-a madhouse, people being killed all over the place-don't know how I was able to escape-"

"Slow down, boy. Was Sunteil killed?"

"I don't think so." Chorian took a deep breath. "He was with his bodyguard and I think they fought their way out the side exit. I went through the baggage loop and crawled into a storage pocket and out the far side. Ran all the way here. They're fighting everywhere-I don't know who, troops loyal to Periandros, troops loyal to Sunteil-"

"Don't forget Naria," Damiano said.

"Naria?" Chorian said, mystified.

"He doesn't know," I said. "Naria's at the palace. He's the one who sent the troops to arrest Sunteil. We just heard him proclaiming himself emperor. Right after they showed the body of Periandros on the screen."

"They showed Periandros, did they?"

"In his funeral clothes, yes. Looking very peaceful. He's lucky to be out of this mess."

Polarca turned to Chorian. "Was it Sunteil who arranged Periandros' death?"

"Of course. An artifical wasp in his bath-chamber. And then Sunteil would land and claim the throne. I tried to send word to Yakoub of what was going to happen, but there was no way to get through-the imperials were monitoring everything-"

"Monitoring the communications channels of the Rom king?" Polarca cried, outraged. "The little shit-ass! The sneak! Doesn't the man have the slightest shred of decency in him?"

"The man is dead," said Jacinto.

"Don't be so sure of that," Biznaga said. He was pointing at the screen again.

"Lolmischo Melalo Bitoso Poreskoro," muttered Damiano in horror and amazement, making the signs of protection against demons. A moment later I was doing the same. For there was Periandros staring straight out of the screen, glum and dour as ever, telling us that he was most certainly alive and very much in charge of the government, and calling on all good imperial citizens to deal mercilessly with the traitors.

"How can this be?" Chorian asked. "The wasp-"

"Killed one of his doppelgangers, maybe?" I suggested.

"Impossible. It was a homing wasp, programmed to be life-seeking. There was a metabolism tropism built into it: it wouldn't ever have attacked a doppelganger. I don't understand how Periandros could still be alive, if he-"

Polarca laughed. "He isn't.
This
is the doppelganger."

"Making a speech?" Damiano said. "A doppelganger, making a speech, claiming to be emperor?"

"Why not? Yakoub thinks it was a doppelganger of Periandros that held the audience with him. But even so he wasn't sure. Periandros may have been using some new improved kind of doppelgangers, yes? And at least one has survived the assassination, and is trying to hang on to the throne-"

"Why would a doppelganger want to be emperor?" Biznaga asked. "It can only live a couple of years."

"It may not know that," Polarca said. "It may not even know that it's a doppelganger. It's just doing what Periandros would have done."

"Jesu Cretchuno Sunto Mario," I muttered. "Three emperors at once! And one of them not even alive."

From the shining streets of the imperial center came the sounds of warfare, louder and louder, closer and closer.

THINGS GREW QUIETER. TOWARD EVENING the government news channel kept its focus almost exclusively on Naria, who appeared every hour or two to urge people to be calm. Now and again the broadcasts were interrupted by the faction of Periandros, asserting that he was still alive and in command. Whenever the Periandros image was on screen I peered close, trying to determine whether or not it was a doppelganger, but there was no way of telling, not on screen. If the assassination had been carried out the way Chorian claimed it had, though, then most likely Periandros was really dead and what we were seeing was his doppelganger, all right. Either way, Naria seemed definitely to be on top at the moment. He was at the imperial palace. Periandros, or Periandros' doppelganger, wasn't saying anything about his own location. From Sunteil nothing at all had been heard since his original speech at the starport.