A good plan is flexible, and unexpected results are acceptable… provided they are sufficiently momentous.
— YOREK THURR,
secret Corrin journals
After so many years among thinking machines, Yorek Thurr had almost forgotten the thrill of applying his particular skills at stalking and infiltrating.
For much of his “first life” in the League of Nobles, he had developed sophisticated deception and observation techniques for the Jihad Police. He could spy wherever he wished, could kill a man in a hundred different ways. But after serving as the undisputed ruler of Wallach IX, then living as a coddled captive on Corrin, Thurr’s abilities had atrophied.
Thus, he was pleased to see, as he sneaked late at night into the Grand Patriarch’s administrative mansion, that he still had the necessary skills. Guards patrolled the grounds, and primitive security systems monitored the windows and entrances. But those electronic surveillance devices and the perimeter warning sensors were as easy to fool as the sleepy, complacent sentinels.
During his time with Jipol, Thurr had made a habit of never waking or sleeping at the same time of day. He altered his schedule, staying awake for days or getting by on only a few hours of sleep in bunkers. Iblis Ginjo had thought it was an amusing display of paranoia, but Thurr did not play games.
One of the high, small windows was open, and Thurr managed to crawl along a rooftop ledge, lower himself down to window level, and slide his legs in through the narrow opening. Contracting his shoulders, he slithered in like an eel and dropped silently to the marble floor. He padded across the hall into the open suite of Xander Boro-Ginjo.
When he found the Grand Patriarch’s sleeping chamber, the buffoon was alone, snoring quietly in his bed beside a burbling fountain that drowned out Thurr’s stealthy approach. Perhaps Xander simply was not interesting enough to have any complex vices. Thurr frowned. Any decent leader needed to have a certain edge. This pampered Grand Patriarch, bestowed with the chain of office through his grandmother’s political wrangling, didn’t deserve to command the surviving remnants of humanity. They needed a visionary like Yorek Thurr, someone with guts and vision and intelligence.
Thurr bent over the sleeping, corpulent man like a mother about to give her child a good night kiss. He drove away the insistent buzzing inside his head, focusing on what he must do. “Wake up, Xander Boro-Ginjo, so that we can get down to business. This is the most important appointment of your life.”
The Grand Patriarch snorted and heaved himself into a seated position, naked. As his mouth opened to splutter a question, Thurr calmly extended the small canister in his hand and sprayed a burst of a pungent-smelling liquid into the man’s open mouth and down his throat. Xander coughed and retched, clutching his larynx. His eyes bugged open wide, as if he feared he had just been stuck with an assassin’s stiletto.
“It’s not poison,” Thurr said, “simply an agent to neutralize your vocal cords. You can still whisper, so we’ll have our necessary conversation, but I can’t have you screaming for help. Even your incompetent guards would cause too much of a distraction. It’s hard enough to concentrate these days.” He rubbed his smooth scalp.
Xander gasped and whispered, finally squeezing out hoarse words. “What? Who— “
Thurr frowned. “I told you who I was. How could you have forgotten so much in only a few days? We had a discussion in your own office. Don’t you remember me?”
Boro-Ginjo’s eyes widened. He let out a breathy call for his guards, but the words were nothing more than a squeak.
“Stop wasting my time. There are great changes afoot this evening. The annals of League history will recall this as a watershed of human existence.” Thurr smiled. “You shouldn’t dismiss me until you know what I offer. I lived for many years on Corrin, and I bring vital information about Omnius. I know secrets about the thinking machines that could prove crucial to our survival.”
Xander opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. “But… but the machines are no threat anymore. They’re all bottled up on Corrin.”
Thurr wanted to slap him. “Omnius is always a threat. Never forget that.” For all his life, Thurr’s entire foundation of power, his reason for existence, had hinged on the conflict of the Jihad. And now, if the League truly believed the last of the thinking machines were neutered, he had to find a way to make his mark. More than anything else, Yorek Thurr did not want to become irrelevant.
Xander whispered for his guards again, and Thurr struck him across a fleshy cheek, leaving a bright red handprint. The Grand Patriarch shook with rage. The spoiled fellow had probably never been treated in such a fashion before.
Calmly, Thurr went to the bureau beside Xander’s bed and with great reverence lifted the interlinked chain of office that the Grand Patriarch customarily wore over his shoulders. “I designed this myself, with the widow of Iblis Ginjo,” he said, looking over at the frightened man, who still sat propped speechless on his bed.
“After Iblis was assassinated by Xavier Harkonnen, we met in emergency session to discuss how to lead the Jihad and keep the League of Nobles on its straight track. Because of politics, and because the people would accept it better, Camie insisted that she become her husband’s successor, promising that I would follow her. But after ten years, she handed the chain of office over to her son Tambir. She didn’t consult with me, simply made the decision by fiat.” His nostrils flared.
“I was livid. I threatened to kill her. She just laughed at me. After all I had done for the Army of the Jihad, after I kept the human race strong against the thinking machines— she betrayed me! So I… changed my alliances.” Scowling, he jangled the ornate chain. “But by all rights this is mine now. You must resign.”
“I… I can’t resign as the spiritual head of the League,” Xander said in his faint whispery voice. “The succession does not occur like that. You don’t understand politics, sir.”
“Then I’ll remove you some other way. But first, ask yourself what have you done for the human race? How have you benefited the League as Grand Patriarch? The answers are obvious.”
Naked, Xander scrambled off the bed and tried to run like a clumsy cow. But Thurr moved with ferret swiftness, intercepting him. With a hard slam against the man’s sternum, he pushed him back to the edge of the bed, where he stumbled and sprawled over it. “Hmm, I take it that’s your decision, then.”
Thurr sat beside the plump Grand Patriarch, who shivered in fear. Going into a near-fetal position, he looked helpless, ready to cry. Dredging up false bluster, Xander squeaked, “You don’t frighten me. You can’t kill me— I’m the Grand Patriarch!”
Thurr squinted, furrowing his leathery brow. “You fail to understand, Xander, that I masterminded both the killer mites that Omnius unleashed on Zimia and the Scourge itself. I am personally responsible for more deaths than any other human being in history. By now I must have killed a hundred billion people.”
The Grand Patriarch lurched to his feet again in a pathetic attempt to flee, but Thurr reached up and grabbed him by the wrist. He dragged him back down, then wrapped his arm around the man’s doughy neck in a casual, almost loving gesture. As Xander gurgled, he squeezed, tightening his hold, then jerked viciously backward until he heard the snap of the spine. He kept holding the chubby man until Xander stopped twitching and squirming.
“There, that makes it one hundred billion and one.”
After letting the Grand Patriarch slump to the sheets of his bed, Thurr proudly draped the chain of office around his own neck, then made his way back out into the night. When alarms finally sounded throughout the city, hours later, he was still flushed with excitement and full of plans about the changes he would make when he took control.
For one thing, security would have to be increased.