Peter Bogdan-Kryukov, Ambassador Plenipotentiary from the Droom of  Vladimisayanskfei XXIIV, Premier of the Dzendayn Empery-Cirot, to the Droom of  Arkvitius X, Premier of the Cosmopolitan Imperium-Conglomerate, leaned back upon his mesh relaxer, sunk within the comfortable gloom of his personal apartments at the embassy on Romanova, taking solitary pleasure, as he often did, in his many well-deserved titles and responsibilities.  

He grinned at the retreating alabaster bottoms of his latest pair of mistresses.  Gone again, my well-upholstered beauties, he thought as he did each morning at this time, with a melodramatic sigh intended only partially in jest, no more fun for Peter again until tomorrow. 

The feeling was mingled with a degree of pleasant satisfaction.  How much less mischief, he reflected, how many fewer wars might have raged throughout the long, mournful dirge which was the sum of human history, had men of power simply put things off another hour to have a second (or a third) go-round with their inamorata?  As he should know, who, in all proper modesty, happened to be, if not the principal power behind the Dzendayn Chair, then at least one of an elite handful and upon the rapid rise.

He blinked.  A small, golden-colored fish swam by at eye level.  One of many he kept here, its movements were uncoordinated, frantic with dimwitted terror.  Another flash of movement caught his eye as a small brown kitten the girls had recently acquired streaked by, paddling for all it was worth.  Instantly it had snapped up the goldfish, devouring it greedily as it drifted a measure from the floor.  Bogdan-Kryukov laughed and clapped his hands at the sight.  Some he knew were not particularly fond of cats, even actively abhorred them.  He had never understood such a narrow attitude.  This miniature devil had barely been here in his special apartments a week, yet it had gamely overcome its most instinctive fears, learning to swim like the otter it resembled and, in the process, winning the ambassador's heart.

"Of course, my swift, voracious friend," he muttered, "some unfortunates we know of---our esteemed, deteriorating master, Vladimisayanskfei, for instance---are not capable of a first go-round.  I wonder what excuse they find to continue such a drab existence."  A spare man, small of stature and dark of complexion, he enjoyed the effect this place had on his voice, which came to his ears deepened in tone and timbre, the opposite to that effect observed when breathing mixtures less dense than ordinary air, like helium.  "I should say we know our Premier as well as any minister, as well as, let's say, our upright, sissy colleague Flownx Trezleniya-Silvertou  knows his, which, we are given to understand, is well indeed."

Halfway between floor and ceiling, the kitten licked its paws. At the sound of the man's booming voice, it stared at him curiously.  "The sad truth, furry one, is that, unlike the shred, prolific Arkvitius, our own poor nominal ruler is not just impotent, but senile into the bargain."  The kitten meowed quietly, blinked huge eyes, turned, and in the attempt to seize and wash its tail, whirled in frustration, the appendage eluding its grasp. It flailed its legs in an effort to stop the rotary motion.  "With each passing year, it grows more difficult, diplomat though I am, to hide my monumental contempt for the fool as prudence mandates.  Why not? All things being relative, Vladimisayanskfei is a mere youth, barely one hundred years old! 

While reluctantly approaching today's appointments, he spoke to a manserivtor. One was of some importance. He recalled, grateful for little blessings, that that individual was permitted to see him even if he was late.  As he watched, he noticed that one of the ends of his waist-tie had apparently decided to float to the ceiling on its own. Smiling, he caught it as did the kitten's tail and wrung it out.  Minute bubbles squeezed from the fabric vanished upward.  The strip of cloth relaxed, staying in its place.  Nodding, he retrieved from the table beside him a datafile that would inform him in detail of the items scheduled for this morning.

In its usual deliberate course, the manservitor he had summoned finally arrived.  Seeing it as no more than a shadow behind a curtain, the ambassador knew that it would be slow-moving, blank-eyed, loose-lipped, and slack-jawed, like every Dzhendayn menial.   This specimen, the vendor had informed his deputy (who had seen fit to mention it casually), was from Zosma.  It had been discovered carrying a small bladed folding knife, he believed, although in general he seldom kept track of such trivia, and dealt with on the spot, as required by Zhendayn law, by a policeman wielding a lobotomized.

"And a good thing," he informed the kitten.  "Within our Empery-Cirot, this law and others like it, as all laws at root are intended to do---though they are seldom enforced with sufficient stringency---have eradicated the servitor problem."  He did not inform his friend (who might not have appreciated the point) that lobotomies were a trifle less imaginative than those left intact.  They were a deal closer-mouthed.  Neither as fearsome nor as versatile as Cossacks---not worth a shit as soldiers or bodyguards, on the other hand, massed upon plantations, they were unprone to revolt---they were cheaper than the warriors, and, accordingly, more expendable.  "Given the right legislation," he added as an afterthought, "which all men must violate daily because it basically outlaws living, they are available in endless quantity."

Drawn by his cheerful, soothing voice, the kitten approached, windmilling its paws, braking to a drifting halt several lines above his legs.  It added another few judicious strokes, settled to his robed lap, and began to give itself another bath. Bogdan-Kryukov mused, instinct is overcome only within limits, an important point for a man of power is to be reminded of.  To business, then, the curtain is about to rise!

This perhaps overly dramatic thought was nevertheless literally correct.  The servitor appeared in silhouette at a curtained portal two measures' square, separating this chamber from the ambassador's office.  It announced itself---it was laboriously trained not to startle---and drew the curtain.  He could now see into what looked like a stage set and adjusted the lighting so that he could be seen, as well.  A goldfish swam before his eyes, but he and the kitten ignored it.  This was not the only such portal in the suite.  The building had been selected neither for price nor the neighborhood in which it sat, but for its architecture.   Had something suitable not been available, he would have ordered it built, for he reclined, suspended in a room filled (woe betide the servitor who allowed such unsightly bubbles to collect near the ceiling) with well-filtered, oxygen-enriched liquid fluorocarbon.

The ambassador's apartments had been designed so that the liquid-filled rooms were at the center, overlooking every other portion of the embassy.  They were protected from a sudden breach (neither of physical integrity nor the Empery-Cirot's extraterritoriality) by double walls and built upon one level to avoid pressure necessitating elaborate decompression.

He grimaced with distaste.  Revealed in the stronger light, something bobbed near the ceiling, too big for the filters which handled innocent indiscretions of the kind committed by kittens or goldfish.  A second glance showed it to be a slipper, escaped from a dresser drawer.  The girls, lucky creatures, spent more time here than he did, but, like all women in his experience, tended towards a general untidiness.  He took a deep breath, inhaling oxygen-rich liquid, exhaling it laden with carbon dioxide.

An odd substance, fluorocarbon, with even more odd properties.  Primitive matches, useless in these rooms (the liquid carried heat away too fast to support flame), still lit after being soaked.  Lights, timepieces, communicators, file players, all operated flawlessly.  Undistracting music wafted through the room.  He must commend the technician.  After many experiments, the transducers had been adjusted to allow for differences between his current ambiance and the air in which the music was enfiled.  (He was thankful the same could not be done to his voice.)  As with most pleasures of which he availed himself, this served more purposes than one.  Buried within the wave-forms of the music--and this, he gathered, was what had offered technical difficulty----a superhetrodyning signal insured that anything uttered within the room would be converted by listening devices into gabble, punctuated by painful shrilling.  He was free to say (and do). anything he wanted, even enjoy an amusing, if one-sided, conversation with a kitten.

He glanced at the jewel-encrusted quickblade lying with comforting familiarity on his left forearm.  It was reliable when immersed, a virtue more attributable to the liquid than to the weapon, but all to the good.  Otherwise, security considerations might have limited the hours he could relax here even more than doing business with the unenlightened already did.

He took another breath, letting his arms lift and settle back.  The pure liquid was lower in density than water, alcohol, even many oils.  Unaugmented, it would not have supported his weight.  He would have sunk to the floor like a stone. Vitamins and other nutrients added to its buoyant properties, like salt added to water.  This was more than just a complex lark.  As Practitioner-Supreme of the Immortal Shrine of the Nebozhiteli (or, as envious others on Homeworld and Romanova had it, a lunatic cult of the same name), he spent most of his hours each day permeated by this liquid, sleeping in it, breathing it---save in the line of diplomatic duty, he no longer ate at all in the open air---and sporting with his women.

Begun as a course of emergency therapy in his youth, when he had nearly burned to death in a starport attack, the Practice had kept him fit for some 370 years---"thus far," he told himself, for with each passing year he came to love life and hate the idea of death more, although, like many a combat veteran, he no longer feared it.  Unlike cryogenous suspension, one was not compelled to sleep through most of his extended lifespan and could take pleasure watching those who called him "lunatic" wither and die.  He had been immersed unconscious the first week.  How well he remembered his initiation into the Immortal Shrine, the effort needed to overcome the fear of taking his first deliberate breath of liquid when every reflex screamed he was about to drown.  Many would-be Practitioners unable to cross that line were, not without understanding, rejected by the Nebozhiteli. He had heard it claimed that many a death attributed to water drowning turned out to have been by suffocation, sheer unwillingness to take water into the lungs.

Now taking that breath was the easiest thing in the galaxy, accomplished several times a day.  Yet it was neither the extension of his life, nor any love of swimming, which had attracted him to the Immortal Shrine, nor a desire to imitate aquatic creatures, but the avians.  Without machinery or similar aids, he could fly within these rooms, fulfilling an ages-old, and (he believed) instinctive desire shared by all men since the dawn of time.

Yawning, he made a note to enhance the oxygen level.  The little fellow buzzing upon his lap consumed a rather disproportionate amount.  He wondered again whether the kitten's life expectancy, like his own, would benefit from an application of the Principia Nebozhiteli.  It was a pleasant possibility.  He could think of no reason why it shouldn't be so.  More oxygen was a good idea for another reason.  He had been considering indulging in a third girl.  If he could not increase the number of hours he had to spare for pleasure, he would increase their quality.  He also made a note to the effect that --with the kitten here, a long-haired one at that---circulation filters would have to be inspected with greater frequency.

"Our first task," he told the sleeping kitten, "will be perusal of  an information digest, notes from the Romanovans, and other diplomatic missions, supplemented by Intelligence, regarding this proposed truce in the region fta'nftntsussh'a'aana'haa'aatsaa'us' ."  Making slow, smooth movements so as not to disturb the cat, he adjusted the summoner to route a message to his clerk.  "Consistent with a practice long since become routine," (if not tedious, he thought), "send a copy of the memorandum I first dictated three years ago straightway to Homeworld bureaucracy, demanding that explorers accredited by the Empery-Cirot bestow sensible names upon new territories, rather than haphazardly adopting unpronounceable grunts collected from the barbarians they find there."

He placed the communicator back onto the table, taking care that it would not drift away.  Where was he?  It was no accident that thought of Trezleniya-Silvertou had arisen earlier.  It was plain to him, and his intelligence squad, that  Arkvitius's henchman was a proponent, if not the source, of the truce offer, whether in his capacity as Oligarch-Advisory or Executor-General was not clear.  It would be worth taking the time to determine which.  He retrieved the communicator and dictated a memorandum to that effect.  If the former, the offer was likely genuine, reflecting some necessity upon the part of the Cosmopolity.  If the latter, it was likely a ploy of war and should be addressed with skepticism and appropriate counter-preparations.

The ambassador had reason to hope it was the former, although it would not affect the performance of his duties.  Despite Vladimisayanskfei's disabilities,   Bogdan-Kryukov had plans to accept, on his sovereign's behalf, the offered truce gift, for he had learned what form it would take upon a recent visit to the Cosmopolitan Droom.  As coincidence would have it, taking pride in a capacity to discern the fullness of the blossom in the promise of the bud, he had for three years, since first coming to Romanova, kept a proprietary eye on this particular flower, seeking means of which to add her (the thought struck him) to his hydroponic garden.

Thanks to the Immortal Shrine, his was the aspect of a man in vigorous middle age.  Even this was mostly cosmetic (he might have been a youth with equal credibility) adopted for politics.  He suffered no such shortcoming as drooling  Vladimisayanskfei and could make splendid use of the young and tender Tris.  Word was that she was unbreached, untapped, however far euphemism ran nowadays, which might prove amusing.  He had not spread a virgin in a long while and the fancy stirred him.  When he'd tired of her he would have her lobotomized as a living trophy or sell her at a profit to the highest bidder.  Such calculated insult would hang upon the truce being betrayed by one side or the other, but experience told him there was no avoiding this.

As he perused the notefile readied by his staff the previous evening, Bogdan-Kryukov laughed to himself.  By another coincidence, were he only willing to contrive it, the highest bidder might be his first appointment this morning.  By appearance a vile proletarian trader, he was an acquaintance of long-standing, almost a friend.  Furthermore, if rumors Intelligence had collected were credited, that the bride-to-be had offered her demurral, none too polite, and would be freighted as punishment to some premier-forsaken colony, his almost-friend might prove to be of use as upon earlier occasions.

He reviewed what he knew of the man, reputedly Romanovan although of questionable loyalty to premier or iperium-conglomerate.  He had observed the fellow taking infantile delight, like his colleagues, in fancying himself a swashbuckling hero.  On the other hand, each profession practiced its pretensions; a diplomat had no business critiquing.  Officially, the ambassador knew him to be an often-useful double-agent.  They shared certain preferences, he and this starsailor.  One year, maybe more, ago, the man had, in his presence, expressed lustful admiration for the Trezleniya-Silvertou bitch.  It had been some formal occasion, a reception for stickmen at the Droom, if memory served.  Owing to him a favor, Bogdan-Kryukov had obtained for him a copy of an autofile he had ordered readied in stealth, the so-called "intelligent" kind which anticipated change and "grew up" with its subject.

Be that as it may, the man was in a mood to reward himself.   He had recently returned from an unbelievable ordeal, a prolonged starvoyage in an auxiliary, imposed by direst emergency, word of which had made him something of a celebrity.  New found reputation offered practical usages to those ready to take proper advantage.  Like many a would-be public hero, he had not hesitated to augment his notoriety by employing a discreet fame-enhancing agency and had experienced little difficulty obtaining more fresh investors than he had a use for, along with a new ship, and was, by all accounts, ready to sail even now, which well suited the ambassador's plans.

Bogdan-Kryukov considered the inconvenience of abandoning his pool of fluorocarbon and thought better of it.  Greater psychological advantage might obtain were he to interview the villain as he appeared now.  He reached to summon his staff of lobotomized servitors, under supervision of a few deputies he trusted to remain in possession of their minds, to welcome the privateer, then reconsidered.  Certain courtesy must be accorded the man if they were to do business with the same cordiality as so many times before.  He felt a groan arising unbidden within him, stifling it before it found a voice.  However casual his first breath of fluorocarbon had become over the years, his last---or, put another way, the day's first breath of air---was another matter altogether.  The ordeal remained, if not utterly impossible (in which case he would have abandoned the Practice), a bother and discomfort.

With a sigh of resignation which he did voice, he lifted the kitten from his lap and hung it, protesting, in the middle of the room.  He unlatched the belt which held him to the lounger, precaution against drifting in his sleep, discarded his dressing gown, and kicked ceilingward where two colored tabs protruded between plastic-coated mesh wires.  He pulled on the first.  A trapdoor descended, exposing the mirrored undersurface of the fluorocarbon, broken with wavelets.  The second released a pair of tapered plastic cylinders attached to cabelles.  He turned a half somersault and slid his ankles into them, tightening straps until he was certain they would support his weight.  Giving the table another lug, he straightened, head downward, feet pointing at the open trapdoor, arms folded to his chest, counting to himself.

At fifteen heartbeats, he began deep inhalation of the oxygen-charged fluorocarbon.  At twenty, cabelles reeled him through the surface of the liquid into the air above.  Long practiced at this uncomfortable transition, he exhaled by reflex, hard as he could, clearing out his lungs.  He inhaled air, coughing once or twice to rid himself of traces of the fluid.  The exercise with the cabelles precluded an entire day of coughing.  Swinging upon well-trained muscles, he unfastened his ankles, lowered himself to the mesh beside the trapdoor, and accepted a dry robe handed him by a manservitor.  Bogdan-Kryukov didn't like it, but he was again a creature of the land.

He set off for the spare suite he despised to find clothes and afterward to greet his near-friend Master-merchant, Vlad Krupin.