Troubled, and still wondering about the gun, the Lord High Admiral broke eye contact with Sanders. “Mr. Prime Minister, could you tell me what this is about?”

  Hampton wouldn’t look at him, but the man finally nodded. “Tell him, Bill,” the new Prime Minister said. “Tell him what this is about.”

  -2-

  Grumpy Bill Sanders intertwined his fingers and turned his hands so his palms faced Cook. The crotchety old man cracked his fingers all at once, leaning back in his chair and letting his hands drop onto the table.

  “Who rules the Commonwealth?” Sanders asked suddenly.

  “Why…the Great Council, of course,” Cook said.

  “Do you believe that the Prime Minister heads the Great Council?” Sanders asked.

  “Naturally,” Cook said. “Why would you think I believed otherwise?”

  “Come, come, Admiral,” Sanders said. “You must have watched the elections. During the last few years, Star Watch, which means you, did exactly as you saw fit. You made key decisions that rightfully belonged to the Prime Minister or the Council on Foreign Relations. While it is true that during some of those times we had martial law, those times have certainly passed.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Cook said, angry now that Doctor Meyers had threatened him.

  “Are you aware?” Sanders asked.

  Cook opened his mouth to retort.

  “Don’t answer that,” Sanders said. “It was a rhetorical question. Many believe that you are the real leader of the Commonwealth, as Star Watch does pretty much what it wants to do. Well, this administration isn’t going to stand for that, Admiral. We are returning to civilian control, to legally elected authority.”

  “We’ve never left that,” Cook said.

  “To break your hold on the Prime Minister’s rightful authority is one of the reasons why he brought Doctor Meyers to the meeting.”

  Cook looked at Meyers in renewed astonishment as she raised the gun and aimed it at him.

  “You plan to murder me?” Cook asked, more angry than frightened.

  “As I’ve told you,” Sanders said, “the Commonwealth will have civilian control once again. If that means shooting a tyrant—yes, Doctor Meyers will murder you, as you put it.”

  “This is the thanks I get for all I’ve done?” Cook asked, working to keep the sudden bitterness out of his voice.

  “This is a precaution,” Sanders said. “We are a new administration. Often, the old guard feels it can do as it pleases as a new administration gains its feet. Well, sir, Prime Minister Hampton is going to hit the ground running, as the old saying goes. We want to know one thing. Will you obey the Prime Minister’s lawful orders?”

  “Star Watch defends the Commonwealth,” Cook said thickly. “We are not the rulers, but the soldiers who obey the lawful authority.”

  Sanders turned to Meyers “Well?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “Not sure about what?” Cook demanded, becoming angrier.

  She turned to him, her dazzling eyes aglitter, and this time it was obvious. The corners of her mouth quirked up in a predatory way. How many men had she chewed up and spit out, broken to her whims?

  “I’m not sure if you’re telling us the truth,” she told him.

  “Mr. Prime Minister,” Cook said, outraged at this slander.

  Hampton spread his hands and gave him the telegenic smile that had won him so many votes. “Doctor Meyers is a top-rated psychologist,” he said. “She is particularly adept at spotting lies.”

  “You don’t need to explain yourself to him, sir,” Sanders told the Prime Minister.

  “I-I feel compelled to do so,” Hampton said.

  Doctor Meyers turned sharply to the Prime Minister. “Compelled in what way, sir?” she asked.

  “His conscience is bothering him,” Cook said, unable to keep his mouth shut. “Both of you might try developing one in yourselves.”

  “Ah,” she said, certainly mocking him. Despite that, with a clunk, she placed the gun on the table.

  Prime Minister Hampton was now looking away.

  The same could not be said for Sanders. The bald old man glared at the Lord High Admiral.

  “You are a powerful man,” Sanders told Cook. “You also have a forceful personality. In my opinion, you have built a cult of personality in Star Watch. If we let you stay on, that is going to change.”

  Cook nearly offered his resignation right there. But he held his tongue. He had worked tirelessly to save humanity from various alien threats, and this was the thanks he got? Their treatment enraged him. He was not going to go quietly into the night of oblivion.

  Several times, Admiral Cook opened his mouth to retort hotly, and each time, he closed his mouth and waited.

  “He will obey the Prime Minister,” Meyers said into the silence. “He doesn’t like us. He really doesn’t like you, Mr. Sanders, but he’s not a tyrant as you believed earlier.”

  Sanders glared at her.

  Doctor Meyers coolly returned it.

  “Clever,” Sanders muttered. Then he seemed to dismiss her in his thoughts as he once more regarded the admiral.

  “The Commonwealth needs time,” Sanders told Cook, seeming to switch mental gears. “We need stability over a long period so we can rebuild to even greater strength than before. Our greatest threat is the New Men. To that end, we must know more about them. We must send an ambassadorial delegation to the Throne World and make binding treaties with them. They are a mystery, Admiral. That is unacceptable. We cannot allow them to prepare in secret for another invasion against us.”

  Cook was looking at the gun on the table. He couldn’t believe they had threatened to shoot him.

  “The gun is a symbol,” Meyers said suddenly.

  “What?” Cook asked.

  “It is a symbol,” she said. “The threat wasn’t your death, but the end of your career in Star Watch.”

  “It isn’t loaded?” Cook asked.

  With a sensual move, Meyers shoved the gun across the table to him.

  “Mr. Prime Minister,” Sanders complained.

  Cook picked up the small black gun and pressed a switch so the magazine dropped out. He checked. The magazine was empty. He slid open the chamber. There was no bullet waiting to fire.

  “It was a prop,” Meyers purred.

  Cook shoved the gun and magazine at Sanders, forcing the stoop-shouldered grump to catch them.

  “You want time,” the Lord High Admiral said, with anger in his voice. “Then, leave the New Men alone for now. Don’t kick the wasp’s nest. Maybe you don’t understand, but the New Men don’t like or think much of us.”

  “We don’t like them either, Admiral,” Sander said. “In fact, if they really wanted peace, they should have returned our kidnapped women they took from the Thebes System.”

  Cook looked down at his old seamed hands, opening and closing them.

  “He’s doesn’t agree with you,” Meyers said.

  “I can see that for myself,” Sanders snapped. “You think the New Men deserve those kidnapped women, do you?” he asked Cook.

  “Of course not,” Cook growled, looking up. “The kidnapping was evil, vile, call it what you will. But there are realities in this world. The New Men are deadly. We need time to strengthen Star Watch before we make demands upon them.”

  “No,” Sanders said. “We need to find them and see their world for ourselves. We need to know if they’re going to suddenly attack us as they did once before or whether they truly mean to live in peace with us.”

  “Give me a year of peace, at least,” Cook pleaded.

  “I’ll give you more than that,” Sanders said. “You have done good work, Admiral. Yes. I admit it, and I can even respect it. What’s more, you’ve become a symbol of stability to trillions of people throughout the Commonwealth. I—the Prime Minister isn’t going to replace you if you can cooperate with the new administration. But after studying several secret reports, I believe that you’ve lost some of your former nerve. In this instance, you’re letting the New Men set the pace, and that just isn’t going to fly in the new administration.”

  “Oh,” Cook managed to say.

  “No,” Sanders said. “So get on the horn with the Emperor, or whatever he calls himself. Inform him of the new realities and then report back to us as soon as the Emperor agrees to our demands.”

  “And if he disagrees to your…requests?” Cook asked.

  “Pressure him. Let him know that if he doesn’t willingly accept Commonwealth representatives, then we’ll be sending out a fleet to find his precious Throne World. We are no longer going to allow those aggressors to plot against us in secret.”

  “Send out a fleet when we need to be rebuilding?” Cook asked.

  Dour old Sanders sneered. “A threat isn’t a deed. Besides, if nothing else, you can send Victory to hunt down the Throne World.”

  Cook said nothing, as he knew now that his opinion carried no weight with Sanders and thus with new Prime Minister Hampton. Maybe it was time to talk to the Prime Minister alone, at a different time. What hold, exactly, did Sanders have on Hampton? And did Doctor Meyers really judge him in a psychological sense?

  “By the way,” Sanders said. “You have just received a new Prime Ministerial liaison.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Cook.

  “The Prime Minister is sending an official liaison officer from his office. She will return with you to Star Watch Headquarters. The liaison officer is the first step our new administration is taking to help the Great Council maintain civilian control over the military.”

  “You’re coming to HQ?” Cook asked, dismayed.

  “You’re not listening,” Sanders said. “Doctor Meyers will join you, as she is the new liaison officer. Before making any high-level decisions, you are to consult with her.”

  Admiral Cook felt his face heat up. “You’re trying to saddle me with a political commissioner?”

  “Call it what you will,” Sanders snapped. “Your days of doing as you like at Star Watch are over. From now on…we’re going to be watching you in order to make sure that our policies are properly implemented.”

  For the second time today, Cook almost gave his resignation. This was an outrage. Yet, he refrained from saying the words, deciding that the fate of humanity was too precious to let Hampton and Sanders run Star Watch. If he wasn’t careful, their new policy was going to restart an unneeded war with the New Men.

  How could he word their foolish demand so the arrogant Emperor didn’t take offense against those he considered his genetic inferiors?

  This was going to be tricky.

  -3-

  Several days later, many hundreds of light-years away in the Beyond—as opposed to known Human Space—the Emperor of the New Men strode along a marble hall in his splendid palace on the Throne World.

  The Emperor was a tall individual with golden skin, and wore a purple tunic. He was the greatest of the New Men, those genetic superiors as first conceived by Methuselah Men Strand and Professor Ludendorff. He was taller than average even among his own kind. And he was swifter, stronger and very much smarter than any who had challenged him for the crown.

  The two Methuselah Men had long ago taken carefully selected colonists on a Thomas Moore Society expedition. The purpose and idea had been simple. The two Methuselah Men had not only known about many of the potential dangers facing humanity, but Strand and Ludendorff had known that mankind might well fail against the alien menaces waiting for them in the stars. Thus, they’d used selective breeding and genetic experimentation far out in the Beyond to create a race of Defenders. These Defenders would protect regular humanity against deadly alien menaces. They would appear at a time when mankind understood that it was doomed, and thus bring salvation and renewed hope. But by their existence, the Defenders would not create human dependency, because until the ripe moment, mankind wouldn’t even know about them.

  It had been a noble idea, but the flaw was in the New Men themselves, the so-called Defenders. In time, they realized that they were superior—which to them meant better—than regular humans were. The obvious question was, why should they risk their lives to defend inferior beings? If they were stronger, smarter, and faster—more worthy, in other words—than those they had come to conceive as the submen, why shouldn’t they rule?

  In other words, why shouldn’t the lower order creatures work tirelessly to promote the superior beings? Thus, the New Men had used the better tech that Strand had given them to invade the Commonwealth of Planets and begin building kingdoms and satrapies for themselves and their posterity.

  The one…imperfection of the New Men was critical to their suvival. The seed from their loins only produced boys, never girls. Thus, they had to periodically acquire new women for breeding purposes.

  The latest “Sabine women” capture had been at the end of the invasion of C Quadrant.

  In ancient history, the early Romans had begun as a settlement composed mostly of men. They had raided the Sabine people when the young women had been in the woods during a festival. The Romans had grabbed the women for wives and raced home. A war had begun, but in the end, the women had brought peace by pleading with their Sabine fathers and brothers not to slaughter their husbands and, in some cases, their newborn children.

  Because Star Watch had fought so splendidly in defense of the Commonwealth, the New Men had retreated, finally arriving at the Thebes System in “C” Quadrant. During their former attacks, the New Men had captured worthy young women, taking them to the Thebes System. From there, the New Men had raced back to the Beyond, taking hundreds of thousands of nubile, carefully selected young beauties for their individual harems.

  The idea of the Sabine-style kidnapping had driven Admiral Fletcher and Star Watch for quite some time. Fletcher with the Grand Fleet had attempted to find the Throne World and demand the return of the women. The first Swarm invasion had changed all that, as the New Men and Star Watch had allied against the greater threat. Although these days the Swarm menace was and would be contained for the next several decades, Admiral Fletcher was no longer in service, having retired after the grueling battle at the Forbidden Planet. There was another thing. Star Watch was much weaker in terms of warship strength than previously, because of all the battle losses.

  In any case, at the moment, the proud Emperor of the New Men strode through a special hall in his opulent palace. The Throne World was an Eden-like planet, discovered long ago by Methuselah Man Strand. The planet did not possess any cities, although it had many environmentally friendly factories and several spaceports. The tall Emperor with his handsome features and intense dark eyes passed an open arch. He glanced within, spying several young women splashing and playing together in a pool.

  If the truth be known, the Emperor sympathized with the softliners among the Captains. The Captains were the royalty among the Dominants or Superiors, as New Men conceived of themselves. A Captain quite literally ran a star cruiser or had some other important post with military significance.

  The Emperor was the greatest of the Captains and held his rank through several factors difficult for submen to understand. One factor was the ancient Roman virtue of gravitas, which implied seriousness or solemnity of manner. When the Emperor entered a room, others noticed his heavy demeanor and magnetic charisma. This allowed him to sway a majority of the Captains to his way of thinking most of the time, giving him greater influence. The Emperor had also achieved many notable athletic feats during war and on dangerous hunts. He was also the best duelist, killing every challenger in formal combat. While the Emperor did not command in the same way a dictator would in a submen police state, he might kill a Captain that challenged him too directly, and the others would accept such a deed as right and proper, if the kill was made during honorable combat.

  Like many human groupings, among the Captains were two chief modes of thought concerning submen. The softliners believed submen could have human dignity. In this instance, the beauties swimming in the pool wore bathing suits instead of going naked, as a hardliner would have insisted. Hardliners considered submen little better than beasts, who obviously did not deserve clothing—one might as well put clothes on a dog or cow—and they did not ascribe to the idea that submen could possess human dignity.

  The Emperor paused by the arch, enjoying the loveliness of his women. He raised a hand in greeting. They all stopped and waved back, smiling to show him their pleasure at being noticed.

  The Emperor lowered his hand in a befitting manner and continued his journey to the communication chamber.

  The pool chamber had seemed rather empty to him. He made a mental note to see if more of his women had become pregnant.

  The Emperor smiled at the thought. He had sired close to one thousand sons. Many of those sons lived in and around the palace. When each came of age, the boy had to leave for a barracks to begin learning how to behave like a proper Superior.

  The Emperor dismissed that from his mind, as he had serious business that he must attend to. He’d received a call from the Lord High Admiral of Star Watch. He had debated ignoring the call, but decided that the Lord High Admiral deserved…

  Was that the right word for a subman such as Admiral Cook?

  While the Emperor was a softliner, there were limits to the dignity he could offer an inferior being, even a notable one like Cook. The submen were clearly greater than beasts. Golden Ural had once pointed out in a meeting the humanness of the submen. A superior did not mate with an ape, as that would be bestiality. New Man law stated that a man should die for sexual deviancy. No. A superior mated with a lower order of human, certainly, but a human after a fashion.

  The Lord High Admiral was unusual for a subman. The old admiral almost had gravitas.

  The Emperor shrugged, took a turn and headed for another arch.

  The Lord High Admiral had a long-range communication device. The Emperor also possessed one. There were a few others in and around Human Space, and they allowed communication hundreds of light-years apart.