The Carpet Makers (20 page)

Sometimes even his thoughts were silent. Then he just sat there watching his indistinct reflection in the opposite wall and did nothing but sense that he was still alive. He would not be for long. Now every moment was precious.

In these moments he was at peace with himself.

Then there were moments of fear. The certainty that death is near and inescapable awakens an animal fear millions of years old, a fear that denies all attempts to understand it, that sweeps aside every rational consideration and crushes every higher need beneath it. It wells up from the darkest depths of the soul to become a terrible flood. Like a drowning man, he sought hope and some relief in those hours, and found only uncertainty.

Gradually he lost his sense of time. It was soon impossible for him to say how long he had been imprisoned—days or months. Maybe he had been forgotten. Maybe he would simply stay locked up here for years on end … would get old and die.

They came while he was sleeping. But at the sound of keys in the lock of his cell door, he was awake and on his feet in an instant.

The time had come. The torture was beginning. He counted sixteen soldiers of the Imperial Guard pressed close together in the hallway, all of them armed with narcotic guns. They always thought of everything. He didn’t have a chance.

One of them, a stocky man with thinning hair and a severe face, stepped into the doorway.

“Rebel Jubad? Come with us!” he commanded brusquely.

Two soldiers approached cautiously and shackled him, so that he could only take small, toddling steps. Then they bound his wrists together and fastened a chain around his waist. Jubad did not resist. When they signaled him to move, he obeyed.

They passed along a brightly lit hallway to a broad tunnel where a heavily armored transporter awaited them with open doors. There was no possibility of escape and no way to throw himself into an abyss or into a barrage of gunfire. They ordered him in, seated themselves around him, and the journey began.

They seemed to go straight ahead for hours. Sometimes they rode through complete darkness, and in the dim light from the instrument panel, the faces of the soldiers, who never took their eyes from him, looked like grotesque demonic masks. Several times they had to stop at energy shields that shimmered threateningly—to await a thorough inspection by guards who sat in armored cubicles and made lengthy telephone calls before shutting down the shields and allowing them to proceed. The whole time, not a word was spoken inside the transporter.

At some point, as they were again riding through the darkness toward a distant speck of light, the transporter suddenly shot out of an opening in a sheer cliff face and floated straight ahead through the air on its antigravity field. Jubad looked around in amazement and took in the overwhelming sight. They continued their course high above a calm, ink-blue sea that stretched from horizon to horizon and bore the great, flawless azure dome of the sky above them. They left behind them a rugged rock face falling steeply to the ocean, and before them … there before them lay the Emperor’s Palace, glistening in the sunlight and almost beyond comprehension in its unimaginable size.

The Star Palace. Jubad had seen pictures, but no picture could adequately reproduce the proud, extravagant splendor of this gigantic edifice. This was the seat of the Emperor, the immortal ruler of all mankind, and was therefore the heart of the Empire. There was no rebel who had not dreamed of reaching this place—as a victor. Jubad came as a prisoner. His eyes clouded over at the thought of the horrors that might await him there.

The transporter descended until it was shooting so low over the surface of the sea that he could have touched the crests of the almost imperceptible swells. The outer walls of the Palace approached rapidly and rose higher and higher. A gate opened like a great maw and swallowed them, and behind it, the transporter landed in the center of a tall courtyard.

“You are being transferred to the Life Guard of the Emperor,” said the commander.

Jubad flinched. That could mean nothing good. The Imperial Life Guard—they were the most devoted of the most select, the elite of the elite, devoted to the Emperor unto death and ruthless with themselves and others. Twelve of them, powerful giants in gold uniforms, all resembling one another like brothers, awaited him on the landing pad.

“Too much honor,” he muttered nervously.

He was placed in the center of the Life Guard contingent, and they waited with expressionless faces until the transporter had departed. Then one of them stooped down and removed his shackles. There was condescension in this act: he seemed to be saying, You can’t possibly escape from us even if you can run.

They led him through endless hallways. Fear throbbed in Jubad, but still he took in everything, every step and every impression. Soon, maybe in the next hallway or in the one after that, a door would open to a room where his life would end. The sterile glow of the instruments in that room would be the last light to enter his eyes, and his own screams would be the sounds he would carry with him into the darkness of eternity.

They climbed a broad stairway. Jubad noted it with confusion. He had instinctively assumed that the interrogation rooms and torture chambers would be located in the lower levels of the Palace—in the cellars where no one lived and where no one would hear any screams. But to the beat of their marching, the guardsmen led him across polished marble floors, through gold-trimmed portals and magnificent halls filled with art treasures from all the galaxies of the Empire. When they stepped through a small side door, his heart beat like a mallet in his chest, but behind the door was nothing but an unadorned white room. With the exception of several armchairs and a table, it contained only a small control panel. They signaled him to stop, took up positions around the room and at the doors, and waited. Nothing happened.

“What are we waiting for?” Jubad asked finally.

One of the guardsmen turned to him. “The Emperor wants to see you,” he said. “Be quiet.”

Jubad’s thoughts leapt back and forth and tied themselves in knots; his lower jaw suddenly dropped open without control. The Emperor? He felt searing terror ignite within him. No one had ever heard of the Emperor participating in person in an interrogation.

The Emperor wanted to see him. What could that mean?

It took quite a while before it dawned on the rebel what that meant. It meant that soon the Emperor would come here himself. Here into this room. Probably through the door that was guarded by two soldiers on either side. The Emperor would come here to confront the rebel.

Jubad’s thoughts stampeded about like a spooked herd of animals. Was this an opportunity? If he tried to attack the Emperor himself, they would certainly kill him, they would
have to
kill him, quickly and painlessly. Here was the chance he had been waiting for. He would show the tyrant that a rebel knows how to die.

In the midst of Jubad’s thoughts, the door opened. The Life Guardsmen came to attention. With measured steps an older, somewhat stocky man entered; in comparison to the guardsmen, he looked like a dwarf. He had graying temples and wore a monstrously tacky uniform, hung everywhere with spangles and tinsel. He gave a stately look around and then said:

“The Emperor.”

With these words, he fell to his knees, spread his arms, and bowed humbly until his forehead nearly touched the floor. The Life Guardsmen did the same, and finally Jubad was the only one still standing.

And then the Emperor entered the room.

There are things one forgets and things one remembers, but among the latter, there are just a very few moments in life that remain burned forever, like oversize, glowing images, into the memory. Whenever Jubad was later asked what the most impressive and most soul-stirring moment of his life was, he had to admit reluctantly: it was that moment.

The presence of the Emperor hit him like the blow of a hammer. Of course he knew the face; every human being knew it. Over the course of centuries, an intimate familiarity with this face seemed to have become part of the heritage of mankind. Jubad had seen films of the Emperor, had heard speeches by him, but none of that had prepared him for—for
this.…

There he was. The Emperor. For tens of thousands of years, ruler over humankind, ruler over the entire inhabited universe, ageless and beyond all ordinary human scale. He was a slender, tall man with a powerful body and a sharply molded, nearly perfect face. Clothed in a simple white robe, he entered the room with infinite composure, without the slightest superfluous movement, and without haste. His eyes fell on Jubad, who had the sensation he was falling into them, as though they were two bottomless wells.

It was overpowering. It was like meeting a mythological figure. Now I understand why people think he’s a god! was all Jubad’s poor brain could think.

“Rise.”

Even the sound of his voice was familiar, dark, nuanced, restrained. It was the voice of someone who lived outside time. Around Jubad, the men of the Life Guard rose and stood with humbly lowered heads. Appalled, Jubad realized that he, too, had spontaneously fallen to his knees when the Emperor entered. He leapt up.

The Emperor looked at Jubad again. “Take off his shackles.”

Two of the guardsmen freed Jubad from the remaining chains, which jangled as they rolled them up and slipped them inside the pockets of their uniforms.

“Now leave me alone with the rebel.”

Dismay registered on the faces of the soldiers for an instant, but they obeyed without delay.

The Emperor waited motionless until everyone had disappeared and closed the doors behind them. Then he glanced quickly at Jubad with a thin, inscrutable smile and walked past the rebel into the room, carelessly turning his back to him as though he were not even there.

Jubad felt almost dizzy with the heat of something pulsing inside him that said, Kill him! Kill him! This was an opportunity that would not come again in a thousand years. He was alone with the tyrant. He would kill him, with bare hands, with teeth and fingernails, and would free the Empire from the dictator. He would fulfill the mission of the rebels—alone. His hands drew silently into fists, and his heart beat so powerfully that it seemed it must be echoing through the room.

“All your thoughts,” the monarch said abruptly, “are focused on the idea of killing me. Am I right?”

Jubad swallowed. The air escaped from his lungs with a gasp. What was happening here? What sort of game was the Emperor playing with him? Why had he sent his Life Guard away?

The Emperor smiled. “Of course I’m right. The rebels have dreamed of a situation like this for centuries—to be alone with the hated despot.… Isn’t that so? Come on … say something. I’d like to know what your voice sounds like.”

Jubad swallowed. “Yes.”

“You would like to kill me, right?”

“Yes.”

The Emperor spread out his arms. “Well, warrior, here I am. Why don’t you try it?”

Jubad squinted suspiciously. He scrutinized the God-Emperor waiting there patiently in his unadorned white robe, his hands spread out in a gesture of defenselessness. Yes. Yes, he would do it. At worst, he would die in the attempt. And besides, dying was the only thing he now desired.

He would do it. Now. Immediately … as soon as he figured out how to get his body to react. He looked into those eyes, the eyes of the Emperor, the Lord of the Elements and the Stars, the Omnipotent Sovereign, and his inner strength flagged. His arms cramped. He gasped. He would do it. He had to kill him. He had to, but his body did not obey him.

“You can’t do it,” the monarch observed. “I wanted to show you that. Respect for the Emperor is rooted deeply in all of you, even in you rebels. It makes it impossible for you to attack me.”

He turned away and walked to the small control panel, beside which two armchairs faced the wall. With a casual, almost graceful gesture, he extended his hand and activated a switch; a section of the wall slid noiselessly aside, revealing to view a gigantic three-dimensional projection map of a star panorama. Jubad recognized the outlines of the Empire. Each individual star appeared to be represented, and the reflection of the galaxies bathed the room in which they were standing in a spectral light.

“I often sit here for hours and consider the things over which I have power,” said the Emperor. “All these stars with their planets are mine. This entire, incomprehensible universe is the realm in which my will is done and my word is law. But power, real power, is never power over things, not even over suns and planets. The only real power is power over people. And my power is not simply the power of weapons and of force; I also have power over the hearts and the thoughts of people. Billions upon billions of people live on these planets, and they all belong to me. None of them passes a day without thinking of me. They honor me; they love me. I am the focal point of all their lives.” He looked at Jubad. “Never has there been an Empire greater than mine. Never has a human being had more power than I have.”

Jubad stared at the Emperor, this man whose facial features were subject to less change than the constellations in the firmament. Why was he telling him this? What did he intend to do with him?

“You are wondering why I am telling you this and what I intend to do with you,” the Emperor continued. Jubad nearly jumped with the shock of realizing of how swiftly and easily the Emperor had seen through him. “And you are also wondering whether I can possibly read thoughts.… No, I can’t. It’s not necessary. What you think and feel is written on your face.”

Jubad sensed almost physically how vastly inferior he was to this ageless man.

“By the way, I have no intention of having you interrogated. So you can relax. I am telling you all this because I want you to
understand
something.” The monarch gave him an inscrutable look. “I already know everything I want to know. Even about you, Berenko Kebar Jubad.”

Jubad could not keep himself from flinching when he heard the Emperor speak his name.

“You were born twenty-nine years ago on Lukdaria, one of the secret base worlds of the rebel organization, the first son of Ikana Wero Kebar and Uban Jegetar Berenko. At age twelve you undertook your first reconnaissance mission, were then trained in heavy weaponry and ship artillery, named support vessel commandant and then ship’s captain and finally appointed to the Consulting Staff of the Rebel Council.” An almost mocking smile flickered across the Emperor’s face when he saw Jubad’s bewilderment. “Should I recount for you some spicy details of your little affair with that young navigator? You had just turned sixteen, and her name was Rheema—”