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The clone looks disgusted, as if he’d found her going through his drawers to smell his underwear. “Have them restored to their original locations. I will view them at once.”
“But the battle…”
He glances at the Telemanus fleet, which makes no new movements toward the planet. “They have little appetite for blood. They’re trying to break through our jammers to broadcast to the people. We have time.”
* * *
—
The clone stands in my private office staring at the puzzles Lilath took from the room to hide for herself. He has not spoken for five minutes. I am surprised Lilath found the hidden vestibule behind the wall. It seems, however, she did not find the hidden passage within it.
“Must that low blood watch us like this?” I ask him. “She looks like a jealous vulture.”
“Leave us,” he says almost in a whisper. Lilath’s cold eyes dart to me.
“My Emperor…it would not be wise.” I flop down in a chair near a coffee table covered with books and a vase of night lilies.
“Paralyze my legs if you’re so afraid.”
The clone eyes the table behind me with suspicion. “There were defense-related systems located in the table,” Lilath reports. “We deactivated them, my Emperor.”
“And the dining table?”
“Deactivated as well.” The clone points to a different chair at the small dining table and another vase of assorted flowers, almost all of which are dead. I sit in the chair and he paralyzes my legs via the psychoSpike.
“See, that wasn’t so hard,” I say.
He turns to Lilath. “If she kills me, she kills Sevro and the others. If she’ll pay that price, she’s earned it.”
Lilath lowers herself into a wary bow, and backs with our two sober Bonerider escorts toward the door. The clone looks back at the puzzles. I was hoping it wouldn’t be paralysis, but nothing is easy.
“I know you are playing a game,” the clone says as the door closes. “But I don’t fault you for it. This all started as a game. It wasn’t until four years ago I heard my recording to myself. Lilath had instructions to follow, a psychological profile of the proper puppet to sponsor for a Senate run. Publius fit my specifications perfectly. She did take control of the Syndicate on her own, but the underworld wasn’t prepared for her level of violence. She is possibly one of the most effective soldiers I have ever seen. That’s both of me talking. But she only goes in one direction at a time.”
He walks down the line of puzzles, passing very near to the idle night lilies. The flowers, uncared for, droop in their vases. Many are dead.
“She would tell it to me all like a story at first. Then presented it to me as a problem set. Given the variables, which gang to kill, which product to sell. I liked it better when it was stories. I was a hero in them, or he was.” He stops in front of a maze. “But we’re not. And I know why. Lilath took me to a slaughterhouse on Earth when I was young. And I saw how they would kill the cows and then make them into food for us to eat. Tell me: why are cows different from people? Cows have dreams. Cows have affection for their friends and family. If you are going to say it is because cows are less intelligent than people, it is acceptable to slaughter them, why is not acceptable for me to slaughter people who are proportionately le
ss intelligent to me than cows are to them? And if you say it is because people feel more, then I invite you to stab a cow and a human in the throat and see how very similar they are.”
As he speaks, my eyes search the vase of flowers, looking for a live one.
“That’s false equivalency. Logical fallacies are beneath you,” I say.
“You know it’s true,” he replies. I look back to him from the flowers just before he glances back. “Deep down. That’s what I care about. Because I can talk to you and I know you hear me. I was promised that with the Boneriders. But they are…aberrant monkeys. From Lilath’s lips you would have believed they were Seraphs.”
“You hated them before too,” I say.
“Did I?” he asks, sounding almost relieved.
“You thought them ridiculous.”
“They are venal. And did I hate Father?”
“No.”
“I shot him in the head.”
“You loved Father as a father should be loved, but he didn’t love you back. That was the problem. You thought it was your fault. There were many things that were your fault. But not that. I think…I think what I’ve realized is that every father makes a mess of things. It’s just a matter of if he cared when he did it. Our father didn’t, and I think you spotted that.”
