Empire's End Read Online Free PDF

feel smart because he’s so damned dumb.”
    “Right away, Your Majesty,” Avri said.
    “You! Walsh!”
    The dimwit that was the ruler of Dusable blinked into semisentient awareness. “How… uh… may I be of… uh… service, Your… uh… Highness?” he managed.
    “I want those lazy sods in Parliament stoked up. Some kind of condemnation vote. Calling Sten and that Scots sidekick of his every filthy name in the book. And if that vote isn’t unanimous, I’ll nail your guts to a post, Walsh. And lash you around it.”
    “Yessir,” Walsh gobbled.
    “One other thing. Get ahold of Kenna. I have a little personal business I want him to transact.”
    “Right away, Your Highness,” Walsh said. Kenna was possibly the sharpest old pol on Dusable. A world whose politics were so crooked infants gurgled the word “mordida” before they learned to say “momma.”
    “Anders. I want all firstline forces on this. I don’t care what fleets you have to strip. Sten must be found.”
    “Yessir.”
    “Bleick!” His chamberlain snapped to. “I want-—•”
    He stopped in midorder as the door hissed open and Poyndex, his chief of Internal Security, entered. His face was grim. Bloodless. A man bearing bad tidings. But the Emperor was too angry to immediately notice.
    “Where the clot have you been, Poyndex? I told you I wanted that info on Sten and Kilgour immediately, dammit. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. But now, dammit. Now!”
    Poyndex glanced quickly around the room. Then back at the Emperor. “I think we need to talk in private, sir.”
    “I don’t have time for games, Poyndex. Spit it out.”
    Poyndex hesitated. The Emperor’s eyes got a sudden spooky glint in them. Clinical paranoia was Poyndex’s diagnosis. “If you insist, Your Majesty,” Poyndex said. “But I would be remiss if I didn’t warn you one more time. This should be discussed in private. I strongly urge you to reconsider.”
    The Eternal Emperor turned to his people. “Get out”
    They got. With feeling. In moments the room was empty. The Emperor looked back at Poyndex. “Okay. Now report.”
    Poyndex stiffened. “I regret to say there is nothing to report, sir. All files on Sten and Alex Kilgour have been wiped clean.”
    “Say clotting what?”
    “It’s as if they never existed, sir.” Poyndex’s heart was hammering as he delivered the news.
    “That’s not possible,” the Emperor said.
    “But I’m afraid it’s true, Your Majesty,” Poyndex said. “Even the Mantis computers have been penetrated. There is no record of Sten—or Alex Kilgour—in any record system in the Empire. I don’t know how it was done. I’ve got every tech in IS working around the clock. The only thing we know for sure is it had to have been done by a very high placed insider.”
    The Emperor stared at Poyndex for a long, uncomfortable time. He turned and palmed a switch. His personal computer terminal winked into life.
    “Fortunately,” the Emperor said, “I keep my own files for just this reason.” He laughed. Without humor. “When all is lost,” he said, “you have to depend on yourself.”
    His fingers flashed across keys, beginning the search.
    “I used to have a staff I could depend upon,” the Emperor said. “Mahoney, for one. Sometimes I regret I had to have him killed. Ian was a strong right arm, that’s for sure.” The Emperor, who normally appeared to be a man in his mid-thirties, suddenly seemed very old to the IS chief. His handsome features drawn. His voice high-pitched… and weak.
    The Emperor looked up at Poyndex. “… The same with Sten. I tell you, Poyndex, the trouble with traitors is they tend to be your best people.” Another humorless laugh. “Maybe that’s what old Julius was trying to tell Brutus.”
    “Pardon me, Your Majesty? I have no knowledge of these beings. Should I have IS put this Julius and Brutus on your Personal Enemies list?”
    The Emperor grunted. “Never mind.” He muttered to himself. Just