Free The Best of Bova: Volume 1 by Ben Bova Page A

anymore. One by one the vanities are surrendered. He sat in a powered chair that held him in a soft yet firm embrace. It was mobile and almost alive: part personal vehicle, part medical monitor, part communications system that could link him with any place in the Empire.
    His son stood. Prince Javas stood by the marble balustrade that girdled the high terrace where his father had received him. He wore the gray-blue uniform of a fleet commander, although he had never bothered to accept command of even one ship. His wife, the Princess Rihana, stood at her husband’s side.
    They were a well-matched pair, physically. Gold and fire. The Prince had his father’s lean sinewy grace, golden hair and star-flecked eyes. Rihana was fiery, with the beauty and ruthlessness of a tigress in her face. Her hair was a cascade of molten copper tumbling past her shoulders, her gown a metallic glitter.
    “It was a wasted trip,” Javas said to his father, with his usual sardonic smile. “Earth is . . . well,” he shrugged, “nothing but Earth. It hasn’t changed in the slightest.”
    “Ten wasted years,” Rihana said.
    The Emperor looked past them, beyond the terrace to the lovingly landscaped forest that his engineers could never make quite the right shade of terrestrial green.
    “Not entirely wasted, daughter-in-law,” he said at last. “You only aged eighteen months.”
    “We are ten years out of date with the affairs of the Empire,” she answered. The smoldering expression on her face made it clear that she believed her father-in-law deliberately plotted to keep her as far from the throne as possible.
    “You can easily catch up,” the Emperor said, ignoring her anger. “In the meantime, you have kept your youthful appearance.”
    “I shall always keep it! You are the one who denies himself rejuvenation treatments, not me.”
    “And so will Javas, when he becomes Emperor.”
    “Will he?” Her eyes were suddenly mocking.
    “He will,” said the Emperor, with the weight of a hundred worlds behind his voice.
    Rihana looked away from him. “Well even so, I shan’t. I see no reason why I should age and wither when even the foulest shopkeeper can live for centuries.”
    “Your husband will age.”
    She said nothing. And as he ages, the Emperor knew, you will find younger lovers. But of course, you have already done that, haven’t you?
    He turned toward his son, who was still standing by the balustrade.
    “Kyle Arman is dead.” Javas blurted.
    For a moment, the Emperor failed to comprehend. “Dead?” he asked, his voice sounding old and weak even to himself.
    Javas nodded. “In his sleep. A heart seizure.”
    “But he is too young—”
    “He was your age, Father.”
    “And he refused rejuvenation treatments,” Rihana said, sounding positively happy. “As if he were royalty! The pretentious fool. A servant . . . a menial.”
    “He was a friend of this house,” the Emperor said.
    “He killed my brother,” said Javas.
    “Your brother failed the test. He was a coward. Unfit to rule.” But Kyle passed you, the Emperor thought. You were found fit to rule . . . or was Kyle still ashamed of what he had done to my firstborn?
    “ And you accepted his story.” For once, Javas’ bemused smile was gone. There was iron in his voice. “The word of a backwoods Earthman.”
    “A pretentious fool,” Rihana gloated.
    “A proud and faithful man,” the Emperor corrected. “A man who put honor and duty above personal safety or comfort.”
    His eyes locked with Javas’. After a long moment in silence, the Prince shrugged and turned away.
    “Regardless,” Rihana said, “we surveyed the situation on Earth, as you requested us to.”
    Commanded, the Emperor thought. Not requested.
    “The people there are all primitives. Hardly a city on the entire planet! It’s all trees and huge oceans.”
    “I know. I have been there.”
    Javas said, “There are only a few millions living on Earth. They can be evacuated easily and