At Empire's Edge Read Online Free PDF

smoothly, as he led the Umans toward a bank of gleaming elevators. “My name is Olious. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to make your visit to the Imperial Tower more pleasant. Assuming that you and your staff are ready to join the other guests, I will escort you up to the eighty-eighth floor, where the party is presently under way.”
    “Thank you,” Usurlus replied politely. “Please lead the way.”
    So, with bodyguards in tow, Usurlus was led onto a highspeed elevator already loaded with a richly robed Senator, and her all-female security detail. Her name was Claudia Sulla, and the Legate knew that he had met her before, and might want to meet her again. Especially given the size and shape of the breast she had chosen to expose, as well as the come-hither look in her eye, and the Sulla clan’s political connections.
    A mild and rather brief flirtation ensued, as the platform lifted all of them up to the eighty-eighth floor in less than a minute. Then it was time to exchange unlisted numbers, before stepping out into what could only be described as a very dangerous party, since every single one of the three-hundred-plus invited guests harbored not just one private agenda but, in most cases, at least a dozen. Some of which they were willing to pursue regardless of cost.
    But, having been reared within a patrician family, Usurlus was used to that and ready for verbal combat. It began almost immediately as Usurlus followed Olious out of the elevator lobby and into the swirling crowd. Dozens of competing essences vied with each other for dominance, togas of every possible hue swirled around him, and the rumble of conversation was so loud that when the businessman from Regus managed to take possession of the small space in front of Usurlus, he was forced to shout in order to make himself heard. “Legate Usurlus! I was hoping you would be here! My name is Burlus, Femo Burlus, and my family owns the Dark Sun Line.” Burlus was of average height, with eyes that were too green to be real, and a softly rounded face.
    Usurlus accepted the quick man-hug appropriate to such encounters, checked an almost encyclopedic memory, and immediately knew what Burlus was after. The Dark Sun Line owned a fleet of small easy-to-land ships that were perfect for running freight out to the sector of the rim that he was responsible for. The problem was that an increasing number of Vord raiders were preying on little cargo vessels like the ones that Dark Sun owned.
    So what Burlus and his family were after was a promise that Imperial warships would escort their freighters into the Nigor Sector and, thereby, protect them. However, if Emperor Emor acceded to that request, he would soon be swamped by a thousand others, and there weren’t enough warships to protect the core worlds effectively, never mind the sparsely settled planets out along the frontier.
    But solving such conundrums was the sort of thing that Imperial Legates were paid one hundred Imperials a year to do, plus expenses of course, which typically ran into the millions. So Usurlus began by letting the businessman know that he was not only familiar with the family’s shipping line and its difficulties but stood ready to help. Not by providing each freighter with a military escort, but by asking the Imperial Commerce Department to organize regularly scheduled convoys, each of which would include a contingent of warships. That would still put added pressure on the Navy, but less than individual escorts would have, thereby serving the greater good.
    The conversation took fifteen minutes, and by the time it was over, another constituent was waiting to speak with Usurlus. And so it went for the next hour until the Emperor’s Majordomo strolled through the crowd repeating the same announcement over and over again. “Citizens of the Empire! The Emperor is pleased to inform you that the 108th running of the Imperial Air Race will begin in thirty minutes. Please make your way