29
IN THE Great Heliosphere, Pasus stood in the next ring outward. He held the scepter in his hands idly—bearing it “for the Emperor,” as he always said. He was staring fixedly at my chest. Another man, and I’d have assumed it was lust. With him, it was the concentric suns of the Interdict that trapped his gaze. My mark of personhood by the leader of the faith he wholeheartedly believed, and yet had willfully disregarded for his own convenience.
How did he justify it to himself? Truly?
In any case, Fustian nan Domitrian stopped before Tyrus, who hadn’t had a dose of Venalox since the night before and looked like he hadn’t slept in his entire life. There was one dose in the morning, which meant he began to look miserable by evening—before he received the other. By the time morning came about, he was already sick and uncomfortable again. It was a wretched torment that waxed and waned without stopping. He rubbed his arms as the vicar drizzled oil over his head, then Fustian stopped by me.
I waited, my chin lifted.
Fustian paused a moment, then blessed me.
The Interdict had decided for him, and it seemed that was enough. As the lights were extinguished to adjourn the service, Pasus swept forward, clasped Tyrus by the shoulder, and almost took mine, then thought better of it and settled his other hand on Tyrus’s other shoulder.
“Vicar Primus, the Emperor and his future Empress should wed soon.”
Fustian nan Domitrian nodded thoughtfully. “The issue of personhood is no longer. What of heirs? There is still the . . . genetic difficulty. Obviously, any child will have to be . . . entirely human.”
Until this, Tyrus hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to anything. He’d been staring at Pasus with bloodshot eyes, waiting for his morning dose. Now his gaze snapped to the vicar. “I’m not having children.”
“Of course he is,” Pasus said smoothly. “And we will take whatever is human of Nemesis, for surely there is something or other, then the Emperor’s DNA. . . .”
“I would sooner castrate myself than produce an heir to this situation!” Tyrus roared.
“The Emperor does not know what he is saying,” Pasus said. “As for . . . Nemesis, whatever is inhuman in her genome can simply be substituted with parts of mine.”
Tyrus broke into laughter. A strange, high sort that made him double over, and I just glared at Pasus, who seemed unappreciative of the laughter.
“This is precious,” Tyrus said, wiping away tears. Or maybe sweat. He looked ragged. “The three of us will have a baby together. All the Senator’s dreams will come true.”
“Does the idea of my DNA repulse you? That’s insulting, Your Supremacy.” Pasus withdrew Tyrus’s next phial of Venalox and considered it. “I would like an apology. Or perhaps I will smash this next dosage.”
Tyrus’s eyes were feverish with hatred, but the need overtook him and I had to look away. He wouldn’t want me to see this; I didn’t want to see it.
Craving had a will all its own, and it seemed to colonize his mind, driving out whatever else had once been in its place. I was sure of it, because Tyrus would never willingly place his lips on Pasus’s boots, or endure the hand that stroked through his hair as he was rewarded for it.
“In any case,” Pasus said, gesturing with the scepter (Tyrus was out of the conversation, sitting on the floor, propped up against Pasus’s leg and totally lost to the Venalox), “We are arranging a great spectacle on short notice, but I do want His Supremacy’s new bride exhibited for all the vicars in the Empire now that she has the Most Ascendant One’s approval. The vicars will likely feel more flexible when the time comes and I wish to revisit the matter of the scepter.”
“When will that time be?” said the vicar.
Pasus’s gaze dropped to the young man below him, and he seemed to be weighing something in his mind. “Not more than a year, I should think. The wedding we can do now. There will be a most magnificent view of the stars in four days. Shall we do it then?”
“Very well,” said the vicar.
My heart felt like it was jolted.
Four . . . four days?
“Excellent,” Pasus said with a smile. “It’s decided.” To Tyrus, “How wonderful for you!”
Tyrus gave a low sound in his throat that might’ve been agreement or objection, and I stared down at him, aghast. Four days. I had only four days, and then I would lose the Hera. Pasus would claim it as soon as it passed into Tyrus’s co-possession.
I couldn’t envision any possible escape without that ship!
Whatever I did, I had to act as soon as possible.
• • •
My thoughts were urgent, darting things, racing this way, that. I’d hatched a tentative plan to don a space-sheath, rescue Tyrus from the outside of the ship, and then we’d simply use the Hera to plow straight through anything in our way.
It was a fine plan—except for the fact that he could no longer be found on the Colossus, somewhere predictable I could plot to reach beforehand.
Where he stayed now shifted from night to night.
Tyrus had been wrong about having nothing left to sell. Pasus could offer one very valuable asset on behalf of the Emperor—and it was the Emperor himself. The Domitrians were the foremost family in the Empire, and just by virtue of who he was, Tyrus was a status symbol with a variety of uses.
His mere presence in a chamber meant there had to be ceremony at his entrance. Tyrus never stuck to that formality unless it was an important occasion, but now that Pasus had assumed the role of proxy Emperor, he insisted that such honors be paid to Tyrus—and Pasus was always there to drink them in as though they were meant only for him.
Images of Tyrus taken while wearing certain fashions could be distributed to help sell them. Any food, drink, or narcotic he enjoyed could be publicized to market that product as “so fine, the Emperor himself partakes of it.” And of course, any chamber on any starship where Tyrus passed the night soon fell into the annals of that family’s history. Their future guests could luxuriate in the knowledge that they were sleeping in a chamber deemed fit for a galactic Emperor.
I suspected Pasus shared custody of Tyrus partly to mitigate concerns that he had too much influence over him. He always wore a most uneasy look, passing the next dose of Venalox onto one or the other of the Grandiloquy so they could preside over the Emperor for an evening.
Arguments began. Then a session of court was even called to hash out the ground rules of these arrangements, as Tyrus just clutched his temples, ignoring whatever they were saying. I listened, shaking with rage as the cloying, false-youth-abusing Wallstrom said, “But what if he visits and he wishes to have sex?”
“With you?” said Pasus skeptically.
“With anyone!”
Boiling inside, I couldn’t sit here and just watch this. I ripped to my feet . . . and Tyrus’s hand caught my arm. I threw him a furious look where he’d just been sitting, eyes closed, almost as though asleep.
“This isn’t theirs to decide,” I snarled.
Tyrus shook his head. “Don’t. Just sit.”
My heart thudded with blinding rage as Pasus reproved the company. “Domitrian DNA is a matter of state. It may not be slung about carelessly. When an heir is born, it will happen after we have all made a decision that it’s the appropriate time. No sooner.”
I wanted to break them all apart. But Tyrus just seemed to want to sleep.
It was horrifying to realize he’d accepted such a fundamental decision was out of his control.
We will leave here, sizzled my thoughts. Tyrus, this will not last much longer—one way or another.
I couldn’t say the words. Anything I spoke to him would be overheard. I could only speak to Neveni in the shelter of the Hera.
The rest of the galaxy believed she was dead, so I had her at my total disposal. I bombarded her with everything I couldn’t say to anyone else, but it was rather like talking to a wall.
In fact, she spent most of her time staring at walls, or worse, scraping her arms and legs with a diamond she’d found on the ship, drawing small lines of blood over her skin. She seemed to prefer that to even the most euphoric substances. The only time I saw any emotion from her was when I mistakenly left a screen on, a broadcast from Eurydice—an account of the Luminar tragedy. They’d been experimenting with bioweapons and accidentally triggered one.
That was the official story.
She broke the screen. Then she lapsed back into silence.
I spoke to her despite the sullen silence. I’d never been particularly verbose, but it was better than the empty void that settled about me when I was alone, when every doubt and fear would seep into me.
I was in the middle of rambling to her: “. . . of course, we can’t truly fix any of this until we reach the Interdict again. The time is growing short—”
“The Interdict?”
Neveni’s voice startled me. It was rasping, dry, crackling with not having been used. Now she looked at me flatly.
“That’s your plan? Go to the Interdict?”
“He’s a man with a conscience.”
“He’s an arrogant old coward who’s hidden away from the galaxy for five hundred years.”
“He’s that, too, but he’ll help us,” I insisted. “If he knew of the Resolvent Mist, of this situation . . . Don’t you see? Every single Helionic professes total obedience to him. He is the single person in this galaxy who is totally untouchable. Even Senator von Pasus’s faction won’t dare to question him. A few words from him, and we’d solve this.”
Neveni was really looking at me now, and I realized I’d gotten through to her. She said, almost to herself, “You’re right. The Interdict matters to them. They all revere him. He’s valuable to them.” Life kindled in her dark eyes. “I’ll help you get there.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.” Her voice was a whiplash of determination. Then she was on her feet, shooting past me. “Let me shower. I smell horrible. Then—then we figure this out.”