The Court of a Thousand Suns (Sten #3). Allan Cole

and tossed in a little sage, a little savory and thyme, and then palm-rolled some rosemary twigs and dropped those in on top. He stirred the mixture, considered for a moment, then heaped in the tomato quarters and glazed them. He shut off the fire and turned back to Sten. He gave the young captain a long, thoughtful look and then began talking again, rolling the small chunks of beef into flour first, and then into a bowl of hot-pepper seeds.

      “I guess, from your perspective, Captain, that I’m babbling about things of little interest, that happened a long time ago. Old man talk. Nothing relevant for today.”

      Sten was about to protest honestly, but the Emperor held up an Imperial hand. He still had the floor. “I can assure you,” he said quite soberly, “that my yesterdays seem as close to me as yours do to you. Now. For the crucial question of the evening.”

      He engulfed half a glass of Stregg by way of prepunctuation. “How the clot you doing, Cap’n Sten. And how the hell do you like Court duty?”

      Sten did some fast thinking. Rule One in the unofficial Junior Officer’s Survival Manual: When A Senior Officer Asks You What You Think, You Lie A Lot.

      “I like it fine,” Sten said.

      “You’re a clotting liar,” the Eternal Emperor said.

      Rule Two of said bar guide to drinking with superiors: When Caught In A Lie, Lie Again.

      “No, really,” Sten said. “This is probably one of the more interesting —”

      “Rule Two doesn’t work, Captain. Drop the con.”

      “It’s a boring place filled with boring people and I never really gave a damn about politics anyway,” Sten blurted.

      “Much better,” the Emperor said. “Now let me give you a little career advice . . .”

      He paused to turn the flame up under the sausage and garlic, then added the pepper-rolled beef as soon as the pan was hot enough.

      “First off, at your age and current status, you are luckier than hell even to be here.”

      Sten started to agree, but the Emperor stopped him with a hard look. He stirred the beef around as he talked, waiting until it got a nice brown crust.

      “First tip: Don’t be here very long. If you are, you’re wasting your time. Second thought: Your current assignment will be both a huge career booster and an inhibitor. Looks great on the fiche — ’Head of the Imperial Bodyguard at such and such an age.’ But you’re also gonna run into some superiors — much older and very jealous superiors — who will swear that I had a more than casual interest in you. Take that how you want. They certainly shall.”

      The Emperor finished the beef. He pulled out a large iron pan and dumped the whole mess into it. He also added the panful of onions and tomatoes. Then he threw in a palmful of superhot red peppers, a glug or three of rough red wine, many glugs of beef stock, a big clump of cilantro, clanked down the lid, and set the flame to high. As soon as it all came to a boil, he would turn it down to simmer for a while.

      The Emperor sat down next to Sten and took a long swallow of Stregg.

      “I don’t know if you realize it or not, but you have a very heavy mentor in General Mahoney.”

      “Yeah. I know it,” Sten said.

      “Okay. You got him. You’re impressing the clot out of me right now. Not bad. Although I got to warn you, I am notorious for going hot and cold on people. Don’t stick around me too long.

      “When all is lost, I sometimes blame my screwups on the person nearest to me. Hell, once in a while, I even believe it myself.”

      “I’ve been there,” Sten said.

      “Yeah. Sure you have. Good experience for a young officer. Drakh flows downhill. Good thing to learn. That way you know what to do when you’re on top.”

      The stew was done now. The Emperor rose and ladled out two brimming bowlsful. Sten’s mouth burst with saliva. He could smell a whole forest of cilantro. His eyes watered as the Emperor set the bowl in front of him. He waited as the man cut two enormous slices of fresh-baked sourdough bread and plunked them down along with a tub of newly churned white butter.

      “So here’s what you do. Pull this duty. Then get thee out of intelligence or anything to do with cloak and dagger. Nobody ever made big grade in intelligence. I got it set up that way. Don’t trust spies. Nobody should.

      “Next, get thee to flight school. No. Shut up. I know that’s naval. What I’m saying is, jump services. Get yourself in the navy. Learn piloting.”

      The Emperor slowly buttered his slice of bread and Sten followed suit, memorizing every word.

      “You’ll easily make lieutenant commander. Then up you go to commander, ship captain, and — with a little luck — flag captain. From there on in, you’re in spitting distance of admiral.”

      Sten took a long pull on his drink to cover his feelings. Admiral? Clot. Nobody but nobody makes admiral. The Emperor topped the glasses again.

      “I listen to my admirals,” the Emperor said. “Now do what I say. Then come back in fifty years or so and I may even listen to you.”

      The Emperor spooned up a large portion of stew.

      “Eat up, son. This stuff is great brain food. First your ears go on fire, then the gray stuff. Last one done’s a grand admiral.”

      Sten swallowed. The Angelo stew savored his tongue, and then gobbled down his throat to his stomach. A small nuclear flame bloomed, and his eyes teared and his nose wept and his ears turned bright red. The Stregg in his bloodstream fled before a horde of hot-pepper molecules.

      “Whaddya think?” the Eternal Emperor said.

      “What if you don’t have cancer?” Sten gasped.

      “Keep eating, boy. If you don’t have it now, you will soon.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      THE EMPEROR HAD two problems with Prime World. The first was, Why Was His Capital Such A Mess? He had run an interstellar empire for a thousand years. Why should a dinky little planet-bound capital be such a problem?

      The second was, What Went Wrong?

      Prime World was a classic example of city planning gone bonkers. In the early days, shortly after the Eternal Emperor had taught people that he controlled the only fuel for interstellar engines — Anti-Matter Two — and that he was capable of keeping others from learning or stealing its secret, he’d figured out that headquartering an empire, especially a commercial one, on Earth was dumb.

      He chose Prime World for several reasons: it was uninhabited; it was fairly close to an Earth-normal habitat; and it was ringed with satellites that would make ideal deep-space loading platforms. And so the Emperor bought Prime World, a planet that until then was nothing more than an index number on a star chart. Even though he controlled no more than 500 to 600 systems at the time, the Emperor knew that his empire would grow. And with growth would come administration, bureaucracy, court followers, and all the rest.

      To control the potential sprawl, owning an entire world seemed a solution. So the finest planners went to work. Boulevards were to be very, very wide. The planet was to have abundant parks, both for beauty and to keep the planet from turning into a self-poisoning ghetto. Land was leased in parcels defined by century-long contracts. All buildings were to be approved by a council that included as many artists as civic planners.

      Yet somewhat more than a thousand years after being set up, Prime World looked like a ghetto.

      The answers were fairly simple: greed, stupidity, and graft — minor human characteristics that somehow the Eternal Emperor had ignored. Cynically, the Emperor realized he did not need the equivalent of the slave who supposedly lurked on Caesars during their triumphal processions to whisper “All this too is fleeting.”

      All he had to do was travel