Free Short Stories by Harry Turtledove Page A

mouse-brown hair, worn unfashionably long, swirled around his ears. “My place is at the University, with my faculty and students.”
    “Well said,” Marshal Rodak murmured, too softly for Dagobert to hear.
    But the Emperor, it seemed, still had one imperial gesture left in him. Turning to Rodak, he said, “If Dr. Sarns wishes to return to the University, return he shall. Detail an aircar at once, while he has some hope of getting there in safety. “
    “Aye, sire, “ the marshal said again. He held out a hand to Yokim Sarns. “ And good luck to you. I think you’ll need it.”

    By the time the aircar pilot neared the University grounds, Yokim Sarns was a delicate shade of green. The pilot had flown meters--sometimes centimeters--above Trantor’s steel roof, and jinked like a wild thing to confuse the rebels’ targeting computers.
    The car slammed down on top of the library. Dr. Sarns’s teeth met with an audible click. The pilot threw open the exit hatch. Sarns pulled himself together. “Er--thank you very much,” he told the pilot, unbuckling his safety harness.
    “Just get out, get under cover, and let me lift off,” she snapped. Sarns scrambled away from the aircar toward an entrance. The wash of wind as the car sped away nearly knocked him off his feet.
    The door opened. Two people in helmets dashed out and dragged Sarns inside. “How do we fare here?” he asked.
    “Our next few graduating classes are getting thinned out,” Maryan Drabel answered somberly. Till Gilmer’s revolt, she had been head librarian. Now, Sarns supposed, chief of staff best summed up her job. “We’re still holding, though--we pushed them out of Dormitory Seven again a few minutes ago. “
    “Good,” Sarns said. He was as much an amateur commander as she was an aide, but the raw courage of their student volunteers made up for much of their inexperience. The youngsters fought as if they were defending holy ground--and so in a way they were, Sarns thought. If Gilmer’s men wrecked the University, learning all over the Galaxy would take a deadly blow.
    “What will Dagobert do?” asked Egril Joons. Once University dietitian, he kept an army fed these days.
    Sarns had no way to soften the news. “He’s going to run.”
    Under the transparent flash shield of her helmet, Maryan Drabel’s face went grim, or rather grimmer. “Then we’re left in the lurch?”
    “Along with everyone else who backed the current dynasty.” Two generations, a dynasty! Sarns thought. The way the history of the Galactic Empire ran these past few sorry centuries, though, two generations was a dynasty. And with a usurper like Gilmer seizing Trantor, that history looked to run only downhill from here on out.
    Maryan might have picked the thought from his mind. “Gilmer’s as much a barbarian as if he came straight from the Periphery,” she said.
    “I wish he were in the Periphery,” Egril Joons said. “Then we wouldn’t have to deal with him.”
    “Unfortunately, however, he’s here,” said Yokim Sarns.

    The thick carpets of the Imperial Palace, the carpets that had cushioned the feet of Dagobert VIII, of Cleon II, of Stannell VI--by the space fiend, of Ammenetik the Great!--now softened the booted strides of Gilmer I, self-proclaimed Emperor of the Galaxy and Lord of All. Gilmer kicked at the rug with some dissatisfaction. He was used to clanging as he walked, to having his boots announce his presence half a corridor away. Not even a man made all of bell metal could have clanged on the carpets of the Imperial Palace.
    He tipped his head back, brought a bottle to his lips. Liquid fire ran down his throat. After a long pull, he threw the bottle away. It smashed against a wall. Frightened servants scurried to clean up the mess.
    “Don’t waste it,” Vergis Fenn said.
    Gilmer scowled at his fleet commander. “Why not? Plenty more where that one came from. “ His scowl stabbed a servant. “Fetch me another of the same, and one for