“With statistics and commonly-available data, we can make these determinations about the grand sweeps of history. There is no doubt about it, gentlemen: our research shows that, if kept to the same course, the Empire will fall within the next three hundred years.” The lights came up on the middle-aged academic, short, balding. His face wore the smug confidence of the seasoned lecturer. “Any questions?” he asked. He looked out upon his audience expectantly.

Kolteo had much to think about in the sky-car on the way to the spaceport. Romik and Frens sat in front while Traffic Control automatically guided the sky-car through the crowded skies of Siben. Kolteo looked out on the never-ending skyline. The city stretched far beyond the horizon, wrapping around the entire world of Siben, the capital world of the Galactic Empire, thronging with its trillions of citizens. Above, beyond the pale sky, millions of worlds hosted quadrillions of citizens.

Kolteo spent the rest of that long afternoon in his office in closed conference with Marrem and Romik going once more over all the reports and sightings of Julin over the past ten years. Julin had been a busy man, traveling far and wide across the Periphery, but Imperial regulations were laxly and inconsistently enforced in the outer reaches of the spiral arms. They had a rough timeline of Julin’s travels, albeit with many gaps.

He woke early the next morning. The bedroom door was still shut. He started to write a note to Sari but found he had nothing he could say. He crumpled the paper in his hand and left quietly. He would make this up to her. Their comfortable life together hung by a thread. He would protect her, no matter what. The night’s rest had clarified the larger situation in his mind.

Julin stumbled, just catching himself on the tunnel wall. He knelt, rolled up his torn pant-leg, and cinched the binding tighter around his calf. Sweat streamed down his forehead, and he grimaced. He’d gotten off lucky: the bullet, a stray ricochet, had gone clean through the calf muscle. The bleeding had stopped scant hours ago, but the wound burned with every step. He stood shakily to his feet. He had to stoop slightly under the low ceiling.

A slight scuff out of time with his own footsteps alerted Julin. He whirled, throwing his pack down and drawing his pistol in a two-handed grip, his left hand clamping the light against the barrel. He caught a flash of gray robes, then he found his arm thrust up, his legs swept out from under him, and he was lying on the hard ground staring up at the roof of the tunnel with a knife blade at his throat.

Vhen leaped to the front seats, leaving Julin in the back. Julin turned to peer back through the rear window of the sky-car. His mind didn’t really register what his eyes saw. His father had suspected the plot against him? Was it possible? Why had he gone along with it then? Julin had reviewed hours and hours of logs on his father’s command ship. Nothing he had seen or heard had given any indication that his father suspected anything.

“When the time comes, do exactly as I say,” Vhen had said. Julin’s heart pounded. He had never felt so tense as he and Vhen stepped off the lift into Altolcz’s offices high on the upper floors of the building. He’d done a lot of stupid things in his life. Walking open-eyed into an Imperial trap had to be the stupidest. A secretary looked up from her desk, smiled at Vhen, and went back to her work.

As the sky-barge left its eyrie perch high above the city, bathed in the red-golden light of sunset, all the high-caste party-goers cheered. All but one. And as the sky-barge settled in the River Turga, sheltered from the drizzling rain by force shields, the band started up and all the most important people of this most important city on the most important planet in the Empire, Siben, all of them began to dance beneath the lights of the city.