Vortex (Sten #7). Allan Cole
ship’s center. Like all flagships, the Victory was designed and built so the Imperial — or flag — quarters were independent of the warship’s own areas. For thousands of years every admiral had known he was a better captain than the flagship’s own captain, and would frequently drop the larger concerns he was paid to worry about and play skipper-for-a-day.
Yes. Sten agreed with Alex that this Imperial Suite was a bit much. The heads had gold fixtures. The basins were real marble. The bedchambers were richly upholstered. As for the beds themselves, particularly the ones — plural correct — in the Imperial private quarters, Sten wondered how they would be described in the inventory:
* * * *
BED, Mark 24, perhaps. Multiple-user-capable. Structurally reinforced to allow occupants limitless creativity. Bed fitted for hydraulic modification while in use, which includes adjustment overall area from polyhedron to circular to conventional; vertical adjustment of any portion of bed for height. Internal and external multiple capabilities, including, but not limited to, internal illumination, external illumination, holographic projection, holographic recording. Includes refrigeration and snack area. Includes full communication capability. Overhead rack (can be hidden) capable of supporting as many as three beings. Fitted for light array to include, but not limited to, stroboscopic or holographic imaging.
* * * *
The owner of such a bed, Sten summarized, would be listed as orgy-qualified and -experienced.
The Emperor?
Sten did not give a damn — but it was odd that during his time as captain of the Emperor’s Gurkkha bodyguard, he hadn’t noticed that the Eternal Emperor seemed particularly sex-driven. He hadn’t thought much about it, but sort of guessed that after a few thousand years maybe the possibilities had been completely explored.
But now?
Hell, he was not even sure he was right — it wasn’t as if Sten had personally explored every inch of Arundel Castle to ensure that what was listed as a storeroom might not, in fact, have been an Imperial bordello.
The problem was going to be, Sten thought, sleeping in that bed himself. Why you puritanical little clot, his mind jeered. There have been times, he prodded himself, that he’d been known to roll about in a big pile with friends. And speaking of which, his thought went on, who’s going to see you sleeping in that humongous great bed, anyway? You might as well have been a clottin’ castrato of late.
Sten brought himself back to the issues at hand. “Mr. Kilgour,” he said, “I’m not at all sure what this goatrope they call the Altaic Cluster is going to be. But I’m getting the idea our boss isn’t giving us all these goodies just because he likes my legs.”
“Prog: ninety percent,” Alex agreed.
“Which means I’ll be needing all my assets. So, uh, do you think it’d be a proper utilization of your talents, Laird Kilgour, for you to skipper this solid-gold whorehouse?”
Kilgour appeared taken aback. “Me? But thae’s an admiral rank. Twa-star, Ah’d hazard. An’ th’ highest rank Ah e’er held, last time Ah meter-metered the matter, wae but wee warrant.”
“I don’t think that would present a problem,” Sten said. “And it wasn’t what I asked.”
Alex considered. Then slowly shook his head. “Ah dinnae think so, lad. But Ah’m touched ae the thought. T’now, thae’s nae been a Kilgour been an admiral. ‘Ceptin’ the pirates, a’ course.
“M’mum’d be pleased, an a’.
“But . . . nae. Marchin’ swabs here an’ bye, pushin’ all this steel aroun’ th’ sky . . . thae dinnae tweak m’ testes. Ah’m more int’rested in all thae clots we’re goin’ out to straighten oot — Ah think thae’s m’ main talent, skipper.”
Sten was very damned elated. Beyond the value he placed on Kilgour’s friendship and quite literal back-guarding ability, he knew that the man whom the Emperor called Sten’s personal thug had real talents at diplomacy, situation analysis, and solution breakdown.
Then a notion crossed his mind. Sten grinned — it was just a shade farcical. But it would bear consideration.
He shut down the computer and stood up. “Come on, Laird Kilgour. Let’s go back to the bar and see if that rhino’s ready to buy us a round.”
Alex came to his feet, then frowned and checked the wall-chrom. “Nice thought, boss. But we cannae. We’ll be haein’ vis’tors back ae our quarters.”
“Visitors? Kilgour, are you running another number on me?”
“Noo, lad. Hae y’ e’r, e’er known me to stick ae match under y’r breeks jus t’ see how high y’ll jump?”
Sten didn’t even trouble with an answer, nor with kicking his “diplomatic adviser” in the slats.
* * * *
“I shall be entirely gotohell,” Sten said.
“Is that all you’re going to say? No ‘Clottin’ Kilgour did it to me again?’ No ‘But duty calleth, M’lady, and I must away?’”
“Nope.”
Sten crossed from the entrance to his suite in Arundel Castle to the sideboard. “Best I can do,” he said, “is I just came from a room I’d like to show you, someday.”
“Do I get an explanation?”
“Nope.”
“Do I get to see that room?”
Sten did not reply. He picked up a decanter and eyed its contents.
“Stregg?”
“Yes . . . stregg.”
“It’s early — but I’ll have one if you’re drinking.”
Sten found two corrosion-proof shot glasses, poured them full, and took one across to Cind. She half sat, half lay on one of the room’s couches.
Sten had met Cind many years earlier under circumstances both would have preferred to be different. Cind was a human woman, a descendant of the warrior elite who had once defended the religious fanatics of the Lupus Cluster, known as the Wolf Worlds. Sten had overturned that corrupt and militant church government during his days as an undercover Mantis Section operative.
When the bodies stopped bouncing, Sten had decided — with the Eternal Emperor’s ex post facto grudging approval — that the victors and new champions of the Wolf Worlds were the Bhor, the excessively nonhuman, obsessively barbaric, insistently alcoholic gorillas who were native to the cluster.
Cind grew up in a failed warrior culture — and studied war. Studied war until it became her love and her obsession. She joined the Bhor and became a warrior — sniping and ship-to-ship boardings among her specialties.
Part of her youthful obsession was the superstalwart that had destroyed her own Jannissar culture. A man of myth named Sten. Then she met him. And found he was not the bearded ancient she had envisioned, but a still-young, still-vibrant soldier.
In hero worship, she found her way to his bed. Sten, however, was in shock after a combat mission had led to the death of his entire team and had no interest in romance, especially from a seventeen-year-old naif. Yet somehow he had managed, entirely accidentally, not to make Cind feel like a fool or himself like a complete idiot.
During the fight to destroy the privy council, they met again and again — but always professionally. Somehow, they became friends.
Then, when the Emperor returned and the privy council was destroyed, Cind traveled with Sten to her home worlds, the Lupus Cluster. Their perceptions of each other had changed during this time. Still . . . nothing happened between them.
And when Sten left to assume his new tasks as Imperial ambassador plenipotentiary, Cind soldiered on, but with less of an interest in hands-on slaughter than in studying the