name.”
By the next morning, he had come up with one.
“Nandi?” I repeated. “But she was the original Shaka’s mother.”
“The mother of the Zulu nation,” he agreed. “What better name for our symbol?”
And that afternoon he designed the flag of the Zulu Empire, which displayed images of both Nandi and a Zulu spear and shield.
I had known Tchaka for most of his life, and Nandi—this bizarre alien animal—was the only living thing toward which he had ever shown affection, quite possibly because she was the only thing that had ever shown him true affection. He had always been alone, yet now Nandi was at every staff meeting, she accompanied him on every excursion to other worlds, she slept in his room, and when he addressed the Empire she was always at his side. It was as if he had stored up a lifetime of affection, afraid to bestow it upon any human, and now he had found a recipient for it. No misbehavior on her part was ever punished, and every accident was forgiven.
The same could not be said for his subjects.
A single critical word against Tchaka was the equivalent of a death sentence. And like his predecessor, he didn’t believe in quietly removing his enemies; he wanted potential enemies to know exactly what they could expect.
His favorite method of execution was to impale the still-living malefactor in the middle of the city square where everyone could see the punishment being carried out. Once—only once—a friend of an impaled man put him out of his agony with a burst from a laser pistol.
And two hours later, that Samaritan had replaced his friend on the cruel sharpened stake.
No one kept count—or at least no one made the count public—but in the first year of the Empire more than a thousand men and women were sentenced to very public, very painful deaths. At the same time, our forces continued to increase in size—some thought enlistment increased primarily because able-bodied citizens felt it would get them farther away from their monarch. Yet no leader ever treated his military better than Tchaka did. The newsdisks and holos were filled with stories of Tchaka, often with Nandi tucked under his arm, bestowing medals and honors upon his troops.
Earth was still fighting its war with the chlorine breathers, who had brought allies into the battle, and neither side had any time to deal with us. We assimilated two or three worlds a month, and Tchaka declared our sector of space off-limits to all life forms, oxygen and chlorine breathers alike. At first neither side believed him; after we blew two or three of their ships away they got the idea.
It was after a staff meeting one morning that I found myself alone in his office with Tchaka, while Nandi perched on his desk and stared hypnotically at me as if I was her next meal.
“I have a question,” he said.
“The King is allowed to ask a question,” I replied.
“I gave a speech yesterday.”
“I know,” I said.
“I did not see you in attendance.”
“You gave it in the square, surrounded by impaled corpses,” I said disgustedly.
“They were past objecting,” he said with an amused smile. “Why do you object?”
“Do you know the last monarch to impale his enemies?” I said.
“The first Tchaka.”
“Before that.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?” he said.
“Vlad Dracul,” I replied. “He was known as Vlad the Impaler, and was such a monster that he served as the model for the fictional Dracula.”
“What is your point?” he asked.
“Do you want to be compared to Dracula?” I said.
“Vlad lived a thousand years ago,” said Tchaka, “and people still know of him. Name a single person from that century—commoner or monarch—who lived within a thousand miles of him.”
And that was the end of the only discussion we ever had about impalement.
16.
One of the colony worlds Tchaka had appropriated was the agricultural world of Lincoln. They had put up some minimal resistance, but he beat it back in less than a day, installed Colonel Khuzwayo as the military governor, informed the citizens that they would be paying their taxes to the Zulu Empire rather than United Earth, and paid no more attention to it—until the day a message from Lincoln got through to Earth, complaining about the treatment the world was receiving at the hands of its governor, and beseeching Earth to come to their aid.
The government of United Earth shot off a message to Tchaka, demanding that he immediately withdraw his forces and relinquish all claims to Lincoln. There was an unspoken …or else at the end of it.
I was there when the message arrived. Tchaka read it, then handed it to me and told me to read it aloud, which I did.
No one knew quite how to react. No one wanted to yield to threats, but on the other hand, we didn’t have the strength to fight United Earth’s fleet. And of course no one dared voice an opinion for fear it would disagree with the only opinion that counted.
Tchaka waited, idly stroking Nandi, who was curled up on his desk, until he was sure no one was going to say anything.
“We have two choices,” he said at last.
“Yield or fight,” said an aide, nodding his head sagely.
“You are a fool,” said Tchaka, “and I have no use for fools. Get out.”
The aide promptly walked to the door without a word. He didn’t know if he was fired or merely dismissed from the meeting, but he wasn’t sentenced to death, and that was enough for the moment.
“As I was saying,” continued Tchaka when the aide had gone, “we have two choices. We can ignore their message, or we can reply to it. If we ignore it, they will almost certainly send an identical message tomorrow. If we ignore it again, and continue to ignore all future messages, they will eventually send a diplomatic envoy to explain their demands. We, of course, will kill him and appropriate his ship.”
He looked around the room, but no one dared show a reaction until they knew which alternative he favored.
“If, on the other hand, we choose to reply, it will be to tell them that Lincoln is under our protection, and we will take all measures necessary to protect it from United Earth’s territorial aggrandizement.”
“They are still preoccupied with their other military actions,” offered an advisor. “They will send a few token ships.”
“They will send a fleet,” said Tchaka. “This is not a matter of our annexing an unpopulated world. They will not ignore an appeal for help from a former colony.”
“Even if we ignore the message and they send a diplomat and we kill him, they will send a fleet anyway,” said the first aide.
“And if the diplomat is sufficiently popular with the masses, they may feel compelled to send an even larger fleet,” said Tchaka. “I see no purpose in delaying the inevitable.”
“They may appropriate our African possessions,” I pointed out.
“Only the countries we assimilated,” he replied with an unconcerned shrug. “Besides, we are never going back.”
I could see that at least half the room wanted to suggest that a confrontation was not inevitable, that we could avoid it simply by giving up our claim to Lincoln, but no one dared to be the first to point it out.
Finally Tchaka spoke again.
“Have Colonel Khuzwayo contact Earth in his capacity as Governor of Lincoln and tell them that their help is neither needed nor wanted.”
“Yes, sir,” said a military aide.
