"Thank the Powers---" the fat man sighed with satisfaction and weariness, "---principally myself, that all the noise is done with for another day.  The menagerie's sent away, and I can be plain Arky Zhandos again."

The Premier of the Cosmopolity of Romanova interlaced his long, thick fingers behind his bullish neck, stretched his legs, and leaned back in the upholstered chaise his body nearly hid from sight.  He was a man of middle years well carried, hirsute to a remarkable degree from the straight black, rather long hair atop his great head, past the curly pelt on his massive chest and shoulders, to a fur only lighter by comparison adorning his legs and ankles, all the way down to his toes.  Heavy mutton-chop whiskers bedraped his jowls.  He turned his fleshy blue-cheeked face, which he was compelled to have shaven twice daily, to address his Oligarch-Advisory and Executor-General, smiling as he did so, and giving him a broad wink.

"The truth is that I love it, Flownx. Each day I wake up filled with more enthusiasm than I could ever claim as a younger man, remembering all over again who I am, and, long before my appointment aide seems to nag me, exactly what lies before me on the morning's taskmenu."

Trezleniya-Silvertou, for all that he had served the Premier upon an intimate basis for more than twenty standard years---and the man's late father another six years before that----never felt altogether comfortable seated in his intimidating presence.  At the moment they were alone.  The Oligarch-Advisory occupied the front edge of a straight-backed chair a few measures away from Arkvitius, having arrived with him in these less grandiose chambers, as he did every morning at this time after the mass audience had ended.  In a few minutes, a working luncheon with a dozen other Oligarchs would be served.  Trezleniya-Silvertou had long since been aware that "plain Arky Zhandos" enjoyed being Premier much more than his late father, Ludodzimir XVIII, ever had.  Maybe as a consequence, Arkvitius had, in his advisor's opinion, proven the exceptional ruler these times needed.  The Executor-General, however, as unaccustomed to hearing him proclaim it, not even in so private a setting.

The room they occupied was four measures by six, most of it taken up---so it seemed to the more modestly proportioned Executor-General---by the huge individual who was, whatever the history behind his title, absolute ruler of the mightiest empire in the history of any known species, comprising more than a million planet-bearing suns.  It was an unremarkable room with a low ceiling and walls the color and texture of an eggshell.  It had no windows, a fact of which Arkvitius often complained, but which gave those responsible for his safety considerable relief when he retired each day from the Droom, a crowded, dangerous setting representing the fulfillment of every bodyguard's nightmares.  Two doors opened into one of these walls, that upon the left leading (by a long, circuitous route, for this was part of an annex thrown up bit-by-bit over several hundred years for the convenience of Premiers and those serving them) from the Droom itself.  That upon the right led to a chamber with big, well-protected windows, where they would soon eat while making a start on the day's real business.

The man whose room it was, however, was far from unremarkable.  "Plain Arky Zhandos," ninth of that given name to wield power as Premier of Romanova, stood taller than many a Cossack charged with protecting his life.  To the untrained eye, he seemed fat, an appearance he cultivated since it had the salubrious effect of putting an opposing politician or would-be assassin off guard.   Trezleniya-Silvertou was one that knew better.  He'd often observed Arkvitius lifting weights (until he grew tired from watching it) and afterward swim lap after lap to soften the visibility of what weightlifting had given him.   Another reason for Arkvitius' fat-like appearance was that it needed an inhuman load to give his muscles definition.  At either pursuit, Arkvitius might have been a champion, although he belittled his skills in the greater scheme of things.  He had once informed his shocked Oligarch-Advisory that striving for such a championship was like demonstrating in public that he was better than anyone at breathing or going to the toilet.  Next to none of his impressive bulk was fat. He had killed six would-be assassins himself, three his Executor-General knew of with his bare hands at moments when no better weapon was avaliable.

Trezleniya-Silvertou shook his head at the remembrance.  This was the same man who, "sitting out" his father's long and less-successful reign (while attempting to give every appearance to the contrary), had taught economics at one of Romanova's principal academies.  In those rare moments that he could spare today, without the aid of a microscope or any other sort of magnification, he wrote poems with a single-haired brush upon grains of rice or played the vlardiakea with such a deft touch (it had been claimed; Trezleniya-Silvertou had never been any judge of music, himself) as to make grown men cry.

Opposite the doors stood a dozen floor-to-ceiling shelves spreighformed the same color as the wall so as not to detract from items Arkvitius kept upon them. Among these were autofiles of his family, friends, acquaintances, bits of minerals, botanical and zoological specimens, small sculptures and alien artifacts, other souvenirs from this planet or that planet, and a handful of ancient page-books, each more valuable, the Executor-General guessed, even as the garments Arkvitius had just cast aside. Entering these chambers, as he did every morning, he had thrown off his spectacular robes, as usual with some deprecating comment.  This morning, what he had worn to the mass audience had been delivered from a fashionable old capital-planet tailor who affected never having heard of spreighformery, let alone employing it. The rice might have supported an ordinary family for a decade.  Arkvitius's quip had been something about "the Czar's new clothes."

Trezelinya-Silvertou had heard him make the same remark upon previous and had given it the chuckle it had once---maybe---deserved, in part because Arkvitius did not think of new jokes to tell from time to time.  Trezelinya-Silvertou had never been able to decide whether he served this enormous and difficult man because he was predictable, as consistent and reliable as his father, or for those other moments when, unlike his father, he was unpredictable and brilliant.

The latest addition to the shelves this morning was an elaborate and novel chronometer, a recent gift from offplanet which Arkvitius had mentioned to him during the audience.  Trezelinya-Silvertou was unsure w whether it was a genuine antique or a cunning reproduction.  A circular display face, about the size of a man's hand, was decorated about its circumference with ancient tally-numbers which scholars called "Rimsky."  Two pointers, one short and broad, one long and slender, both embellished to the point of indecency, somehow indicated the hour.  This was not the principal novelty of the timepiece.  Below the face swung a pendulum which made a rather annoying "tik-tok" noise, its lower edge fashioned in the shape of a head-knife such as he had in the hands of laborers upon certain primitive worlds.

Beneath lay a miniature figure in clothing a thousand years out of date, ankles and wrists bound by fine rings.  As it put up a mechanical struggle against its restraints, each swing of the pendulum brought the sharpened lower edge closer to its chest.  Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick....

So clever was the mechanism that he thought he could see the mannequin's eyes widen within each minuscule drop of the descending blade, its mouth forming a tiny O as it "realized" its struggle was in vain, that the hour and evisceration, approached rapidly.  With effort, Trezelinya-Silvertou wrenched his own eyes from the awful timepiece.  Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick....

Arkvitius was naked as the fabled impersonator, his mountainous midsection covered with a light rug, and about to finish his third mug of caff---stiff with cream, sugar, and chocolate so dark it had gone into the mixture black---which served the purposes of sharpening his alertness for the day's duties and maintaining his deceptive bulk.  The mug sat on a small mesh table beside the chaise which also held a servant summoner to which he had rare recourse, and a ceramic dish heaped with ashes and stubbed ends of nicotinettes representing (in his estimate, for, unlike many things he enjoyed, he could find no reason to justify it) Arkvitius's only authentic vice.  Trezelinya-Silvertou drank the same caff as Arkvitius, this being his only vice.

A knock came at the right-hand door.  This, too, happened each morning.  As ordered, without waiting for permission, a security aide poked his head into the room, raising cultured eyebrows in inquiry  Not bothering to rise, as he and his Executor-General would have done on any regular day, Arkvitius raised a beefy hand, palm outward.  The timing came as a surprise, but neither the event nor its necessity.  Nonetheless, Trezelinya-Silvertou felt a chill.

"We'll be delayed this morning, Vsevolod, so kindly inform the Oligarchs-Hyphenated. See that they're outfitted with whatever refreshment they wish."  He indicated the device lying beside his caffcup and ashtray.  "We'll not be too long, nor disrupt your well-planned schedule, we promise you.  We shall ring when we're ready to be dressed."

"As you wish, sir."  The aide withdrew, closing the door without otherwise responding.  Given the huge difference in their stations, it was the closest, Trezelinya-Silvertou recognized, the man could come to a pout, and one reason he preferred employing non-human servants.

Even as he winked at his Oligarch-Advisory again and pondered the most graceful manner in which to broach a subject nobody, not even Trezelinya-Silvertou, would ever know had deprived him of sleep the previous night, Arkvitius reached for a pack lying beside the ashtray, removed the last cylinder it contained---it'd been full when he had awakened this morning---drew on it, and exhaled smoke.  He crumpled the empty pack in his pawlike hand.  In keeping with a ritual Arkvitius had never been aware existed, Trezelinya-Silvertou arose and took it from him for later disposal.  Arkvitius would not have servants enter this personal sanctum until he was ready to leave it, not even to empty out his overflowing ashtray.

"Flownx, my good and faithful, much as we both wish otherwise, the moment's arrived which you and I have dreaded all morning.  Tick tock, tick, tock, tick...

Trezelinya-Silvertou braced himself as if he, not the mannequin, felt the blade about to fall.  No question lingered whether he deserved it.  It had been his idea, he regretted bitterly, to suggest that his own niece, beautiful fourteen-year-old Tris, be offered as a goodwill gift in a betrothal of marriage to the doddering, but still technically eligible, Vladimisayanskfei XXIIV, Premier of the Dzendayn Empery-Cirot. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick....

"I'm glad you don't deny it, nor ask me what I speak of.  We understand each other.  I suppose she had to be informed of my decision.  But I don't know why, despite these many years of service to me, you'd ever think, once the suggestion was made and accepted, that her preferences in the matter would be inquired into.  Tell me, Flownx, do you know what a quintillion is?"

"Sir?"  What did this have to do with the subject at hand?

"A quintillion, Flownx, in the old pre-barcode writing which I find a deal more expressive than the soulless stripes we use today.  A 'one' followed by eighteen 'zeroes.'  By some estimates, something more than the quintillion human beings exist within the various polities of the known galaxy, perhaps that many within the Cosmopolity itself."  Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick...

Except for an uncle who had proven less meritorious a protector than he might have been, Tris had no family.  While she was still an infant, her parents, Flownx's younger brother Vadim and his lovely wife Alexandria, had disappeared in the vastness of the Deep while touring their far-flung plantations and mining properties.  It had been years, and before the end was in sight had required an enormous amount of money and exertion, before Tris's uncle learned, beyond an evaporating shadow of his final cherished doubt, what had become of them.

"Possibly this estimate is exaggerated, sir," he replied. "May I...."

"No, you may not, Flownx. Not for the moment, old friend.  You're right, it's quite possible the estimate's exaggerated. After all, the ravages of a thousand years' unceasing warfare, and what's less widely understood, the everyday predations of the governments who wage it, some ten or fifteen times worse than war itself, must take some toll of that figure."

Vadim and Alexandria had been just two victims somewhere between systems.  Flownx's brother had fallen prey to the ultimate pressgang.  Tranquilized within seconds of his vessel's capture, he'd been transported to a hidden "factory" planet where the unspeakable was carried out upon a production basis.  From that moment on he never again knew human consciousness nor the feeling of acting upon his own will.  In a sense, it might have been asserted that Vadim Trezelinya-Silvertou had died. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick...

"Sir?" Only now did Arkvitius's words register on his much-preoccupied mind.  "Everyday predations of governments." Had the Executor-General uttered these words, he would likely have been executed without trial.

"Oh, don't look so shocked, Flownx!  You know me better than that.  On the other hand, the estimate of quintillion may well be too low.  To be sure, no method exists of being certain."

Despite himself, Trezelinya-Silvertou's mind had begun to wander backward in time.  Upon that hidden factory planet, listed in no official interstellar chart, along with millions of other victims, Vadim's mind and memories, all that distinguished him from every other member of his species, were erased by "electrotherapy," psychoactives, operant conditioning, and surgery.  In another sense, this might have been the moment of Vadim's death, for, at this point, it all became irreversible.

What was it the Premier had just asserted?  No method of being sure---but of what?  "No, sir, regrettably.  If I may...."

"You very well may not!"  I've thought this out with great care and postponed the day's work to get it started.  Do not interrupt me again!"

Vadim's body had continued living, swollen with hormones, machine-exercise, and tailored viruses, for such was the purpose of the process.  In secret, at an unimaginable expense, the hulking thing which was once a man had been transformed into a fighting robot, to be transported to more "civilized" reaches, maybe Romanova itself, and sold for more than its weight in precious metals.  Vadim Trezelinya-Silvertou had become a Cossack.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick...​​​​​​​  Arkvitius paused here, awaiting acknowledgment.  Realizing he had forbidden any word at all, he continued before his friend could be caught in another error.  "Such numbers convey precious little to the human mind.  A quintillion?  What's that?  Eighteen zeroes?  What do they mean?  Nonetheless---perhaps for this very reason---valuable lessons are to be learned from them as regards the human condition."

It was no different with Vadim than for centuries with a hundred million others.  Popular belief held Cossacks to be "rehabilitated" criminals, mutants, aliens, the product of some advanced petrosorcery.  However, contrary to all the myths and rumors, they were formerly human beings one and all, suffering what might be called the cruelest fate ever inflicted by one man upon another.  Victims of a ubiquitous and voracious form of slavery, each had been selected, subjected to elaborate alteration, for no purpose except killing. An amateur athlete, Vadim's misfortune---the basis for his selection--was that he had superlative reflexes and a magnificent physique.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick......Again the Premier paused, this time for a longer time.  Unable to bear the prolonged silence, and the persistent tick-tocking of Arkvitius's chilling new toy punctuating it, the Executor-General risked speaking.  "I see, sir.  Please continue."

"Thank you, Flownx, you're most kind.  Now, whether consciously or not, the lessons I mentioned are extracted by everyone, on an everyday basis.   They form the unstated ground upon which every decision and transaction is carried out in our forty-second-century civilization."

Trezelinya-Silvertou's search had taught him more about forty-second-century civilization, and the character of those he lived among than he had ever wanted to know.  When he had learned the truth about Cossacks, he had wanted it broadcast from the top of the Droom to a galaxy that would rise in arms to exterminate every slaver plying the Deep.  He had been taken aside silently by the Premier's other advisors.  The Cossack "secret" was not much of a secret, after all.  The pretense served many interests.  A small effort was needed to preserve it.  All that was necessary was for certain people to look the other way, which they were all too happy to do.

"To wit:  a single unit of any commodity in such abundance as to be expressible only in numbers like quintillions can't possess much value by itself.  Whatever mankind's self-delusional philosophies have ever asserted to the contrary, there exists, as there always has and always will, an immutable natural law which every merchant has savvied since the day cuneiform accounts were first backed into clay."  Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick....

Flownx's time and money, however, had bought him a uniquely horrible experience.  A law of physics, as immutable as any the Premier chose to lecture him about, states that nothing is without cost.  A Cossack's superhuman powers demanded that his brain and body be overdriven, after no more than 3 or 4 years' service to his owners, to the point of self-destruction.  It was tough to obtain any Cossack in particular.  It had never occurred to anyone to try.  No true individual could be identified among them, any more than with spreighformed caffcups or ashtrays.  This would defeat the whole purpose of having "made" them.  Each was considered, by supplier and customer alike, to be an identical, respectable, replaceable unit.

"I think I..."

"The law states, as it always has and always will, that the more there is of anything, the less valuable any single unit of it becomes.  This is the Law of Marginal Utility, to which everything everywhere is inalterably subject."

After a lengthy wait, Trezelinya-Silvertou had accepted, in a state of growing horror, delivery of a particular used-up, useless slave.  Rather than a replaceable unit, however, he saw before him someone he had loved, fifteen years the younger, now white-haired, toothless, wrinkled, noncoherent.  Vadim was unaware of his surroundings.  His body trembled with an uncontrollable affliction resembling Parkinsonism, and he suffered premature senile dementia.  This, as everyone knew, was the fate of every Cossack.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick...."Sir, I..."

A scream penetrated the room.  Trezelinya-Silvertou's head jerked towards the timepiece, where, as the pointers indicated the end of the hour, the swinging blade reached its victim.  The miniature shirt and chest were cut through.  Minute organs could be seen inside.  A hideous scarlet liquid pooled around, splashing across the blade.  Trezelinya-Silvertou had no choice but to listen to the enfiled scream as the pendulum swung to and fro through the tiny violated body 13 times in all---that was the hour, early afternoon---before the head slumped, the blade returned to its original position, the little man's wound healed by a mechanical miracle, blood drained away to be recycled, and the ordeal started anew.  They sat in silence for a long while.

With some effort Arkvitius turned on his side, to face his old friend and advisor.  "I hope with all sincerity that you appreciate what I'm driving at, old chum, for we're quite late getting started today---I'm not altogether sure that new timepiece is in good taste, are you?---and I should regret having to waste more time explaining myself any further."

He rose up, cast the rug off with the same gesture as his expensive finery, and took the summoner for his dresser.  "Given the Law of Marginal Utility, in all the starry universe, across the cold expanse of the Deep, upon millions of planets, nothing, Flownx, is found in greater quantity---or on this account is less valued---than a human life."

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick...The timepiece counted minutes before the next atrocity.  "Not yours, nor mine, nor those of your brother and his wife---yes, I know all about them---not even your own dear niece, Tris."221Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBr9wFZPofo

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick.....​​​​​​​"If you get my meaning."221Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhDRQ34SwQW