Seven of Nine - Christie Golden [14]
Beytek crunched another bite of food. "Where's that?"
Only years of practice kept Xanarit's face from betraying him. "On the outskirts of our Empire, Sector 408. Elebon Boma, the Tatori ruler, has sent a fifth petition requesting food and a means by which to extract water from the atmosphere. Medical supplies-" "Would be wasted on those pathetic things," drawled Beytek. "As I recall, they didn't even make proper tribute last year. Will there be a representative from Tatori this year?"
Tribute, a yearly ritual on Lhiaari, was only a few days away. Each year, a representative from each world brought the amount of tribute his or her world owed the Empire for protection, sustenance, and inclusion. Some gave food or precious minerals. Others just gave money. Some donated slave labor. A few enterprising worlds had offered exclusive rights to new technologies they had developed.
Xanarit hesitated a moment before replying. "No, 0 Great One. They have nothing to give. Had we supplied them with the equipment they requested, which was promised to them in the Treaty of Minaa, which your father signed, they would have been able to irrigate their crops and-" "My father signed it," retorted Beytek, his eyesacs changing color with his anger. "I did not! Why should we waste precious technology on such a backward planet? Let them develop their own equipment, I say.
Hrffk!" He shuddered in irritation and calmed himself by popping a ripe berry into his mouth.
"O Great One," said Xanarit in a deceptively soft voice, "if you persist in not honoring treaties, you will cause unrest among your peoples. It is a little thing, this device that is due the Tatori, and it could save millions of lives. Think of the honor that would be due you! Think how the name of Beytek the Seventh will ring upon the tongues of the grateful Tatori!"
For a moment, it appeared as if that argument might sway the young ruler. He paused and inflated his chin-sacks with pleasure. Then he shook his head and drank some more wine.
"No. There's no point in it."
Xanarit felt a knot growing in the pit of his second stomach. No point in it. No point in dispatching some of the most common, least expensive Lhiaarian technology to a dying planet that needed only water to revive. It took all the control that the chief advisor could summon not to launch himself up at the raised her upon which the Emperor lounged and rip the arrogant youngling's soft throat out, but that would accomplish nothing.
No point in it.
Instead, Xanarit obsequiously ducked his head.
"As my most honored ruler wishes." He turned to examine the next issue on the list, but Beytek surprised him by initiating another subject.
"I've heard a rumor-unconfirmed, of course that the Skedans have been seen on one of the Imperial waystations." He leaned forward and flicked his tongue. "Have you heard about this rumor, Xanarit?" His eyes darted about. "Any of you?"
Murmurs of protest rose from the assembled Council. Xanarit had to call upon his deep powers of concentration to prevent his eyesacs from turning red and thus betraying his emotions. "Who is spreading such distressing falsehoods?"
Beytek's smile grew and he shrugged. "Rumors are like the tariflies, they buzz about with no clear point of origin."
By the Great Father, he's got the Ku out looking for them! Beytek was hardly a master of deceit, and even when he was trying to be cryptic, he often-as he just had-betrayed himself. Xanarit loathed the Ku for a variety of reasons, but mostly for the pleasure they took in their job.
Killing for a ruler was nothing new, and in fact was an honorable profession. But there was a world-an empire-of difference between honorable warfare and the stealth of the assassin, the flash of the sword of antiquity or the energy weapon of today versus the knife to the throat in the night. No one was supposed to know about the Ku, but everyone did. But they were not spoken of. Not here, not ever,