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am probably middle-aged, she said, and spread out her legs until they touched both sides of the bed.

She ran her hands over her naked stomach, finding it not as flat and firm as it had been when Selvock had come to visit Jerry Crove and had, as an afterthought, seduced his fifteen-year-old granddaughter. But who had seduced whom? Selvock never knew it, but Mother had chosen him as the man most likely to accomplish what her grandfather was too good and her father too weak to accomplish-- the conquest and unification of the human race.

It was my dream, she mid to herself. My dream, that I needed Selvock to fulfil. He bloodied himself in a dozen planetside wars, sent fleets here and there at his command, but it was I who made the plans, I who set the wheels in motion, I who fired the starships and sent them on their way. I found the money by bribing, blackmailing, and assassination.

And then, on the day Selvock was confident of victory, that bastard Russian had shot him with (of all things!) a pistol and Mother was alone.

She lay naked on the bed, remembering the feel of his hand on her flesh, the tense, gentle hand, and she missed him. She missed him, but hadn't needed him after all. For now she ruled the human universe, and there was nothing she wanted that she could not have.
* * *

Dent Harbock sat in the control room, watching the monitor. Mother was playing with herself on the bed. If the people could only see a holo of this show! he thought. There'd be a revolution within the hour.

Or maybe not. Maybe they really did think of her as-- what had Nab called her? --an earth mother, a figure of fertility. If she was so fertile, how come no children?

Nab walked into the control room. "How's the old bitch doing?"

"Dreaming of conquest. How come she never had any children?"

"If you believe in a god, thank it for that. As it is, things are comfortable. The only royalty in the universe is a middle-aged woman we only have to wake up one day in every five years. No family squabbles. No war of succession. And nobody trying to tell the government what to do."

Dent laughed.

"Better start the music. We have a busy schedule."

The music started and Mother was startled into alertness. Ah, yes. It was time. Being empress wasn't all luxury and pleasant memories. It was also responsibility. There was work to be done.

I'm lazy, now that I'm at the pinnacle of power, she said to herself. But I must keep the wheels turning. I must know what is going on.

She got up and dressed in the simple tunic she had always worn.

"Is she really going to wear that?"

"It was the style when she ruled actively. A lot of heavy sleepers do that-- it keeps a touch of familiarity around them."

"But, Nab, it makes her look like a relic of the pleistocene."

"It keeps her happy. We want her to be happy."

The first item of business was the reports. The ministers had to make the reports personally, and the new ministers who had been appointed since her last waking were on trial as she talked to them. The minister of fleets, the minister of armies, and the minister of peace were first. From them she learned about the war.

"With whom," she said, "are we at war?"

"We aren't at war," said the minister of armies innocently.

"Your budget has doubled, sir, and the number of conscripts is also more than twice what it was yesterday. That's a lot of change for five years. And don't give me any merde about inflation. Whom, my dear friends, are we fighting?"

They glanced at each other, fury barely concealed. It was the minister of fleets who answered, affecting contempt for his fellows. "We didn't want to bother you with it. It's just a border conflict. The governor of Sedgway rebelled awhile ago, and he's managed to attract some support. We'll have it under control in a few years."

She sneered. "Some minister of fleets you are. How do you get something under control in a few years when it takes twenty or thirty years to get from here to there even in our lightships?"

The minister of fleets had nothing to say. The minister of armies intervened. "We meant, of course, a few years after the fleets' arrival."

"Just a border conflict? Then why double the army?"

"It wasn't that large before."

"I conquered-- my husband conquered the