Governor Rodney Zimmerman was sitting naked in his bath, sipping from a glass of green hork-fruit wine when Mai Lee’s call came through. He was quite irritated. It was time for his afternoon sex, which he liked to have while relaxing in his ten-thousand gallon tub, to be followed immediately by his afternoon nap. To his mind, there was no room in this scheme for a rude call from the dried up old prune that had helped appoint him. Accordingly, he let the phone chime six times, flashing Mai Lee’s ID and stern image on the screen each time, lest he forget who it was that was calling, before he gulped his wine and opened the connection.
“Working hard as usual I see, Governor,” she said, making no attempt at pleasantries. She stared rudely at his exposed fatty pink abdomen and stick-figure arms.
“I’m on vacation,” he said stiffly.
“Naturally,” she purred, a dangerous sound.
“Of course, it’s always nice to hear from you, Empress,” he smiled, using the title he knew she liked best. There hadn’t been an official Emperor or Empress of New Manchuria since the earliest years of the colony, but Mai Lee had the proper blood and the power to fit the title.
“I’ve got some unpleasant news for you,” she said, pausing to ponder her broken nail. Governor Zimmerman knew she was playing with him, but couldn’t help responding with a groan. He so hated bad news. Bad news usually meant work at the capital, or worse, a field trip away from his beautiful villa on the rim of the famous Stardrop Cliffs to some squalid corner of Garm.
“Do you recall how you got your post, Governor?”
“Why… why, of course,” stammered Zimmerman, spilling a dollop of his green wine into his steaming bathwater. He had refilled his glass, having sensed he might need bolstering. “I was appointed by the Planetary Senate.”
“After the unfortunate demise of the duly commissioned Governor Riedman sent out from Neu Schweitz by the Cluster Nexus.”
“Yes, the shuttle accident over the Desolation, a black day for the colony,” said Zimmerman, really beginning to hate Mai Lee all over again. She had swung her clan’s votes in his favor unanimously, which when added to the block from the Zimmerman’s made him a shoo-in for the appointment. She all-too-often made a point of recalling this to his attention.
“Yes. I recall your presence at the funeral. You can fake tears like a holo-actor.”
“Could you get to the point, Mai Lee?” he asked with uncharacteristic bluntness. Her prodding was beginning to get under his skin, which was pruning up badly in the churning waters. His paygirl stepped out onto the terrace wearing a terrycloth skirt and slippers. He waved her back into the house. She left with her lower-lip protruding in an exaggerated pout.
Mai Lee appeared to be enjoying herself. “Ah, how strange are these coincidences of fate that change the faces of power.”
Feeling the first pang of real worry, Zimmerman leaned toward the phone, pressing his flabby side against the cool lip of his tub. “What’s happened?”
Mai Lee’s eyes ceased wandering and focused back on his face, her black-eyed gaze hardening. “The new Governor has just arrived on the Gladius. He will be claiming your title shortly, I suggest you prepare a reception for him.”
“What!” cried the Governor, horror-struck. He sunk back into the warm waters, eyes bulging like a heart- attack victim. “But it’s only been eight years! How could this happen? What will I do?”
“It was bound to, sooner or later. The Cluster people aren’t total idiots, you know,” said Mai Lee with an off-handed gesture.
“What are we going to do?”
“I’ll do what I can, and you do what you can. That means get your heavily-invested crowd of uncles and aunts to back you and slow down any kind of action in the Senate, in case he announces before we can move.”
“But what will you do?”
Here Mai Lee grinned and showed all her ancient teeth-unnaturally preserved enamel that should have rotted out of her head one hundred and eighty years ago. Somehow that grin shined through all the make-up and the operations, showing her true, fantastic age. She leered at him, a skeleton clothed in flesh that hung on her bones like limp putty. “I’ll do what I do best. I’ll kill him.”
After the connection cut off, Zimmerman was left to stew in his warm gurgling bath. He swam to the far side of his bath and looked out over the edge of the Stardrop Cliffs. Fluffy clouds scudded along far below him, brushing up against the great rock walls. Ten thousand feet down, air-swimmers wheeled over an endless stretch of white sand and black rocks. The sea pounded against the cliffs with huge waves churned up by the powerful gravity of Gopus overhead. It was a scene unchanged for millennia.
But it would change for Hans Zimmerman. If this new usurper were allowed to take his place, he would no longer be allowed to enjoy his villa, nor the jungle house, nor his saber-reed plantation on Gopus. He wouldn’t be able to afford them without the tens of thousands of credits in graft he received weekly for his lax police services and general rubber-stamping of the Senate’s every bill. Roasted air-swimmers and even green hork-leaf wine, his favorite, would be things of the past.
With a knot of cold fear in his belly that he had not known for almost a decade, Hans Zimmerman gulped down the last of his wine and swam back to his phone. He began tapping wet fingers on his contacts-list like a man possessed.
Two
It was midnight in the depths of the Equatorial Desolation. Garth huddled close to a tiny campfire that sputtered and popped, greedily eating the sparse fuel of spiny weeds he fed it. The weeds were all that grew on the sifting red sands.
An unknown figure approached along the highway. As he drew near, Garth recognized that the man was a fellow skald.
“Your rider is the great Fryx?” asked the man coming into the firelight.
“Yes,” said Garth. “Come and sit with me.”
Zeke, a small skald with large ears and long fingers, sat beside him. “You are indeed blessed to carry one so exalted as Fryx.”
Garth smiled slightly, trying to quell his pride. He added another twig to the campfire and in so doing moved slightly so that the scarred, red, horizontal stain that slashed across his face was more visible in the firelight. “The dictates tell us that it’s not proper for a skald to feel prideful.”
“Ah! I see now the mark of a great rider. The way it encompasses your eyes with livid red is truly striking,” Zeke said, beaming. He leaned forward so that he could better examine the red stain in the flickering light of the campfire. “Only the oldest and the largest of the riders leave such a blaze of glory upon mounting their skalds. Now I understand why my rider has driven me to find you. Surely, I have much to learn from the skald who bears Fryx.”
“It was more good fortune than anything else that brought Fryx to me,” said Garth, trying to sound humble.
“But tell me, communication must be easier for you than I, how does it go with Fryx?”
“True telepathy with one’s rider always takes time. Today I started playing at sunset, and still I continue to play and listen, hours later in the depths of night.”
Zeke nodded. “It goes much the same with my rider. Tell me, brother Garth, why did you come out here to this forgotten corner of the planet?”
“I seek what all skalds seek: truth through communion with my rider. I have wandered over much of this planetary system.”
“You are young yet.”
“Yes, I’m still serving my pilgrimage. I’ve visited many of the works of man and nature, and recently entered the Desolation seeking solitude. The Desolation at night allows the closest intimacy and communication with one’s
