There was nothing inherently wrong, he conceded, in the notion of an empire, nor even of an emperor for all humanity. Certainly someone had to make the human race work together despite its traditional divisions, and the man in the chair had no illusions about his species. With the best of intentions (assuming they existed—a point he felt no obligation to concede), few of Earth’s teeming billions would have the least idea of how to create some sort of democratic world state from the ground up. Even if they’d had one, democracies were notoriously short-sighted about preparing for problems which lay beyond the horizon, and the job of ultimately defeating the Achuultani was going to take centuries. No, democracy would never do. Of course, he’d never been particularly attached to that form of government, or Kirinal would never have recruited him, now would she?

Not that his own views on democratic government mattered, for one thing was clear: Colin I intended to exercise his prerogatives of direct rule to provide the central authority mankind required. And, the man in the chair reflected, His Imperial Majesty was doing an excellent job. He was probably the most popular head of state in Earth’s history, and, of course, there was the tiny consideration that the Fifth Imperium’s armed forces were deeply—one might almost say fanatically—loyal to their Emperor and Empress.

All of which, the man in the chair admitted, made things difficult. But if the game were easy, anyone could play, and think how inconvenient that would be!

He chuckled and rocked gently, listening to his chair’s soft, musical creaking. Actually, he rather admired the Emperor. How many people could have resurrected an empire which had died with its entire population over forty-five thousand years before and crowned himself its ruler? That was a stellar accomplishment, whatever immediate military advantages Colin MacIntyre might have enjoyed, and the man in the chair saluted him.

Unfortunately, there could be only one Emperor. However skilled, however determined, however adroit, there could be but one of him … and he was not the man in the chair.

Or, the man in the chair corrected himself with a smile, not yet.

“Finished, Horus?”

The Planetary Duke of Terra looked up and grimaced as Lawrence Jefferson stepped into his office.

“No,” he said sourly, dropping a data chip into his security drawer, “but I’m as close as I’ll be for the next decade, so we might as well go. It’s not every day my grandchildren have a twelfth birthday, and that’s more important than this.”

Jefferson laughed as Horus stood and sent his desk computer a command to lock the drawer, and an answering smile flickered on the old man’s lips. He glanced at Jefferson’s briefcase.

“I see you’re not leaving your work home.”

“I’m not going to the party. Besides, this isn’t ‘my’ work—it’s Admiral MacMahan’s copy of Gus’ report on that anti-Narhani demonstration.”

“Oh.” Horus sounded as disgusted as he felt. “You know, I’ve learned to handle prejudice. We all suffer from that, to some extent, but this anti-Narhani thing is plain, old-fashioned bigotry.”

“True, but then the difference between prejudice and bigotry is usually stupidity. The answer’s education. The Narhani are on our side; we just have to prove that to these idiots.”

“Somehow I doubt they’d appreciate your terminology, Lawrence.”

“I call them as I see them.” Jefferson grinned. “Besides, you’re the only person here. If it leaks, I’ll know who to come after.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Horus finished shutting down his computer through his neural feed as they strolled out of the office, and two armed Marine guards snapped to attention. Their presence was a formality, but Hector MacMahan’s Marines took their responsibilities seriously. Besides, Horus was their Commandant’s great-great-great-etc.-grandfather.

The two men took the old-fashioned elevator to the ground floor. White Tower at NASA’s old Shepard Center had been Horus’ HQ throughout the Siege, and he’d resisted all pressure to relocate from Colorado on the basis that the fact that Shepard Center had never been anyone’s capital would help defuse nationalist jealousies. Besides, he liked the climate.

They crossed the plaza to the mat-trans terminal, and Jefferson was grateful for his bio-enhancement as his breath steamed. He wasn’t in the military, so he lacked the full enhancement that gave Horus ten times the strength of an unenhanced human, but what he had sufficed to deal with little things like sub-freezing temperatures. Which was handy, since Earth hadn’t yet fully emerged from the mini-ice age produced by the Siege’s bombardment.

They chatted idly during the walk, enjoying the moment of privacy, but Jefferson was still a bit bemused by the absence of bodyguards. He’d grown to adulthood on a planet where terrorism was the chosen form of “protest” by have-not nations, and the report in his briefcase was proof his home world frothed with resentment as it strained to make a nine- or ten-millennium leap in technology. Yet for all that, violence directed at Earth’s Governor was virtually unthinkable. Horus had not only led Earth’s people through the carnage of the Siege, he was also the father of their beloved Empress, and only a particularly stupid maniac would attack him to make a statement.

Not, Jefferson reflected, that history didn’t abound with stupid maniacs.

They entered the mat-trans facility, and Jefferson felt himself tense. It didn’t look like much—merely a railed platform twenty meters on a side—but knowing what it could do turned that brightly lit dais into something that made the primitive tree-dweller within the Lieutenant Governor gibber.

His stride slowed, and Horus grinned at him.

“Don’t take it so hard. And don’t think you’re the only one it scares!”

Jefferson managed a nod as they stepped onto the platform and the bio-scanners Colin MacIntyre had ordered incorporated into every mat-trans station considered them at length. The mat-trans had been the Fourth Empire’s executioner, the vector by which the rogue bio-weapon infected worlds hundreds of light-years apart, and he had no intention of allowing that particular bit of history to repeat itself.

But the scanners cleared them, and Jefferson clutched his briefcase in a sweaty hand, trying very hard to appear nonchalant, as heavy capacitors whined. The mat-trans’ power requirements were astronomical, even by Imperial standards, and it took almost twenty seconds to reach peak load. Then a light flashed … and Horus and Lawrence Jefferson stepped down from another platform on the planet Birhat, eight hundred light-years from Earth.

The thing that made it so damned scary, Jefferson thought as he left the mat-trans receiver gratefully behind, was that you didn’t feel a thing. Nothing. It just wasn’t natural … and wasn’t that a fine thing for a man stuffed full of sensors and neural boosters to be thinking?

“Hi, Granddad.” Jefferson looked up as General MacMahan held out his hand to Horus then turned to shake his own. “Colin asked me to meet you. He’s tied up with something over at the Palace.”

“Tied up with what?” Horus asked.

“I’m not sure, but he sounded a bit harassed. I think—” Hector grinned impishly “—it’s got something to do with Cohanna.”

“Oh, Maker! What’s she been up to now?”

“Don’t know. Come on, I’ve got transport waiting.”

“Damn it, ’Hanna!” Colin paced back and forth before the utilitarian desk from which he ran the Imperium, tugging on his nose in a gesture his subordinates knew only too well. “I’ve told you and told you you can’t just go chasing off after any wild hare that takes your fancy!”