One

Year of The Prophet 4721

Kalif Gorsu Areknosaamos sat in the shade of a gnarled old voorwa tree, reading briefs. It was somewhat warm and the Kalif was fat. He wore loose shorts that reached his knees, and a crisp, sheer, scarlet shirt. His exposed arms and legs were thick with curly black hair; his beard, scalp, and brows were also curly, and grizzled.

Several of his hairy fingers bore rings, and a ruby had been set in the center of his nobility mark, a 3/8-inch polychrome star on his forehead. Bracelets of gold filigree dangled loosely on one furry wrist, and a slender gold chain hung from his neck, holding a jeweled medallion in the form of a sextant. The Prophet, the Blessed Flenyaagor, had been a navigator first of ships and later of souls.

A serving girl stood by the Kalif, a girl perhaps fourteen years old. Now and then she would lift the lid of a refrigerated bowl, take a cube of melon from it with small fingers, and hold it to the Kalif's lips. His mouth would accept it absently, and occasionally he stroked the girl's well-draped buttocks with a chubby hand, appreciating their concealed curvature. His potency had left him years before, but he enjoyed the aesthetics of sight and touch.

Another person, an aide, stood silently a few yards off, waiting for whatever order might come.

The Kalif's full lips smiled sardonically as he read. Now and then he chuckled. When he finished a sheet, he'd toss it aside on the grass, from which a ten-year-old page boy picked it up and added it neatly to a stack on a small table.

The pendant on the Kalif's fat neck concealed a watch. It began to peep at him like a baby bird, and grunting, he handed the rest of the brief to the page. The serving girl picked up his sandals and put them on his hairy feet, then braced herself and helped him stand. Smiling, he fondled her buttocks again. The aide picked up the stack of paper on the table.

Then, with the aide at his right, the page at his left-both half a step back-the Kalif started across the private inner garden to his apartment, the girl following.

At first he didn't notice the three men waiting for him there, watching his approach from the edge of curtains that partly draped the open sliding doors. His contact opticals were effective, but he was occupied with thoughts. It was the page's small voice that alerted him. "Your Reverence-"

The echo was baritone: "Your Reverence." The Kalif's scowling glance took them in: two officers of his personal guard, and a rather tall prelate, still young, in a light tunic with a miniature sextant, unjeweled, on his chest.

"What is your business?" The words rumbled from the Kalif's thick chest.

The young prelate held up an envelope. "The message is urgent and confidential. About R."

Still scowling, the Kalif held out an open hand and the young prelate stepped forward, handing the envelope to him. As the Kalif took it, the young man grasped the fat wrist, the elbow, twisted and thrust, jerking the thick hand behind the Kalif's back. Held it there with his left hand while the right swiftly drew a syringe from an open belt pouch. Meanwhile one of the guard officers had shoved the muzzle of a pistol under the aide's chin. The Kalif's grunt alerted the two inner door guards, but the syringe had moved to his jowl, where it chuffed sharply. The door guards stopped in mid-stride, confused by the sight of another automatic pistol, pointing at them in the fist of a familiar guard captain.

"He is already dead," the captain told them. "It's too late to save him." The words sounded strangely casual in the quiet room.

Within seconds the Kalif's weight sagged, but the young prelate kept him upright for seconds more, to be certain, before letting the heavy body collapse to the floor.

The assassin, the young prelate, looked across the room at the two shocked door guards. "You will not be punished for failing to protect him," he said. "The deed was done at the order of the College of Exarchs, with the knowledge of your commander."

He turned to the aide. The guard lieutenant had removed his pistol from the man's throat. "I believe you know why this was necessary."

Dough-pale, the aide nodded.

"Stay here for now. Until someone comes for the body." The assassin turned to the girl and the page. The boy seemed paralyzed; the girl was shaking visibly. "You stay here, too," the prelate said gently. "Both of you. A sister of the Faith will come for you later. Everything will be all right."

Then the young prelate and the two guard officers strode from the room, their weapons back at their belts, passing the door guards, inner and outer, without a look. A gray-haired exarch, white robed, waited for them in the corridor, and they left together.

The College of Exarchs waited restlessly in their conference chamber, around the large oval table there. The exarch that entered with the assassin was the eighteenth, completing their number. The Kalif's throne stood unoccupied at one end of the table, an ornately jeweled crown sitting in front of it. A Guard squad stood lined up along the wall behind it, an affectation of the late Kalif.

The young prelate, the assassin, stopped a few feet from the table, and with a slight bow addressed the secretary of the College. "Alb Deloora," he said, "the Kalif is dead. As you ordered."

The assassin's glance took in who was surprised and who was not. Roughly a dozen of the eighteen were startled and shocked. Of the four senior members, however, clearly all had known in advance, and this particular squad of guards showed no surprise. It took several seconds before the unwarned exarchs began to yammer, several at once, demandingly. The secretary raised his hands and spoke, stilling them.

"You know what the Kalif had become. And we have evidence, unequivocal, that he had been plotting the most enormous of heresies. He planned to publish and present what he would call The Book of Kargh! To add to and 'correct' The Book of The Prophet, which the Blessed Flenyaagor gave to mankind millennia ago. He then planned to set himself up as a holy despot. He'd have caused not just insurrection but outright revolution, and quite possibly the fall of the kalifate and College."

He waited for a moment, and when the hubbub persisted, barked them to silence. "We decided against a bill of impeachment," he went on. "Unavoidably we'd have had to make the whole thing public, with details that would have disgraced and weakened the kalifate for years to come."

He didn't give another, even more compelling reason: successful impeachment would have required fifteen votes in favor, fifteen of eighteen. And it was impolitic to point out that the Kalif had five of them in his pocket-could have depended on their votes regardless of his heresy.

"Thus some of us decided it should be done-the way we did it."

A casual hand gestured toward the assassin. "We were fortunate to have someone on staff who has served in the military, as an officer of imperial marines. You all know him, Coso Biilathkamoro; he has served us well in more ordinary ways. A man of decision and action. Not only did he subvert the Guard command, the most difficult job of all, and on short notice. He also performed the execution with his own hand. Without him we could hardly have succeeded; he has earned our deep appreciation."

The secretary glanced around the table, then settled his eyes on the prelate-assassin and beckoned to the guards. "Unfortunately, someone must die for this act of violence against the Successor to the Prophet. Someone must be sacrificed." He pointed at the assassin, and his voice took a tone of command. "Unfortunately, the one by whose hand the Kalif died. Guards, shoot this man!"