The Thousand Emperors

‘You’re one of them, aren’t you?’ said the old man, his face a mixture of awe and terror. ‘From the Tian Di.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s your ship?’

‘You’re alone?’ asked Jacob.

The old man squinted, and Jacob realized with a start that he had trouble with his eyes.

‘Your eyes,’ asked Jacob. ‘What’s wrong with them?’

‘My . . .’ The old man stared at him in befuddlement. ‘Of course,’ he replied after a moment. ‘You won’t know about the Edicts.’

‘Edicts?’ Jacob grasped at a sliver of memory. ‘You mean the Left-Behind – their Church Edicts, is that what you mean?’

The old man nodded. ‘The pastors won’t stand for any kind of messing around with the body now,’ he said. ‘Not any more, anyways.’

‘Tell me your name,’ said Jacob.

‘Jonathan Kulic. My father was . . . one of you.’

‘Where is he?’ Jacob demanded. ‘Why didn’t he or Bruehl or any of the other agents come here to meet me?’

‘I . . .’ the old man faltered. ‘My father died, years ago.’

‘Died? Of what?’

‘He . . . he came to believe in the Edicts.’

Jacob stared at him. ‘I don’t understand. How is that even possible?’

‘He didn’t have faith in the Edicts at first,’ Kulic replied, ‘that much he finally told me just before his death. But when he did come to believe in them, he let the microchines in his body – is that what they’re called? – die out. After that he grew old so quickly, some in our community believed he had been touched by God, or perhaps punished by him.’ Kulic shook his head. ‘He never even told my mother where he’d really come from, but he confided in me, on his deathbed.’

Jacob’s mind reeled. If Jonathan Kulic was telling the truth, his father – a Tian Di sleeper agent – had gone native, falling for the dictates of an extremist religious group existing on the very fringes of Coalition society. It said much about the moral corruption of the Coalition that such fringe cults were allowed to exist. But then again, groups such as the Left-Behind provided excellent cover for Tian Di agents.

‘And the others?’ Jacob demanded, stepping closer to Kulic. ‘Bruehl? Sillars? What about them?’

Kulic took a step back, looking frightened now. ‘Bruehl . . . changed. I don’t know as much about Sillars. I told the beacon everything I could.’

The beacon. He meant the transceiver, of course. ‘Then why are you here?’ asked Jacob, stepping forward and grabbing a fistful of the old man’s shirt. ‘You had nothing to do with any of this; you’re not from the Tian Di. Why did you come here?’

Kulic stared back at him with wide and frightened eyes, looking like he was on the verge of tears. ‘It’s hard to explain.’

Jacob reached behind his back, sliding a thin blade from out of a narrow sleeve situated over his lower spine. He brought it up to where the old man could see its razored edge glinting in the light of the world-wheel, then touched it to the side of Kulic’s throat.

‘Why didn’t you alert the Coalition authorities here that your father had confessed to being a spy?’

‘I was too afraid of them,’ the old man stammered, ‘of what they might do to me. I grew up with stories of the horrible changes they make to you when you join them, of the Fallen in the cities, demons pretending to be human. And, besides, the villages are all I’ve ever known. He told me – my father, that is – that the Tian Di would wipe Darwin and all the other Coalition worlds free of sin. So when he died, I decided to finish what my father could not.’

Jacob relaxed his grip on the old man. He was nothing more than a weak-willed old fool. In some ways that might make him dangerous, and Jacob knew the safest course would be to terminate him immediately.

Yet the fact remained that his mission so far had gone desperately awry almost before it had started. There was at least a chance Jonathan Kulic might actually be able to help him.

‘I need shelter, clothes, and food,’ he told the old man. ‘I also need a little time to regain my strength. Can you help me?’

The old man reacted with pitiful gratitude, his eyes shining as he sobbed. ‘Of course. Of course! You’re going back there, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘Back to Temur, through that new transfer gate.’

Jacob struggled to control himself. His training told him he should reach out and snap Kulic’s neck and be done with it; whatever madness had taken over Kulic’s father had caused him to share the intimate details of his mission with his son, an act that constituted an appalling breach of protocol.

But then he saw the old man’s eyes were again damp with tears. He’s been waiting all his life for this moment, Jacob realized with a shock – waiting for the day his father’s transceiver would activate, and give his life a purpose that had clearly been missing.

Jacob had been lucky to survive the journey across the light-years – and even luckier to have evaded the Coalition’s security forces on reaching Darwin. He could almost believe the God of the Left-Behind really had guided this old man to help him, when by all rights he should have been forced to