Berserker Throne by Fred Saberhagen Page A

be, with no home land or planet of their own. But the place for diplomacy would seem to be out in the mainstream of human civilization, out where the other power brokers moved.
    Or perhaps her hypothetical questioner would understand at once. After all, the Prince had been here on the Fortress for four standard years.
    If instead of talking about diplomatic contacts she were to say that she was waiting for her prisoner to show up—well, that would have been at least as accurate, but the reaction perhaps less fun to watch.
    And this, she decided, must be the eminent gentleman himself approaching now. The groundcar easing its way toward Commander Blenheim through moderate traffic was of a type unremarkable on the streets of the Fortress, though it would have been conspicuous almost anywhere else. It was a special model that could maneuver as a slow and very short-range spacecraft as well as an atmospheric flyer. Two such vehicles had been assigned for the Prince's use, and both of them had been modified to radiate certain identifying signals continuously, tracer transmissions that allowed Templar spy devices to follow their movements. But the cars—or flyers—bore no special markings visible to the casual eye.
    Commander Blenheim had met the exiled Prince Harivarman for the first time yesterday, but only in a brief formal introduction on the day of her arrival. She had promptly accepted the Prince's offer to give her a tour today of Georgicus Sabel's old workroom; she had chosen to wait for him outside the gate, arriving a little early so she could keep an eye on the progress of some of the remodeling work nearby while she was waiting.
    The Prince—no, she reminded herself, she must now cease to call him the Prince, even in her own thoughts, even if everyone on the Eight Worlds still called him that; the regulations that were part of the Compact of Exile said that he was now to be addressed as General Harivarman—the general, then, the exile, had been a quasi-prisoner here in the Fortress for the past four years. The commander's intelligence reports informed her that he was becoming something of an enthusiast about the local history. Well, for such a small place, there was certainly plenty of history available here; more than some whole planets had to boast about, Commander Blenheim had often thought while doing her homework on it as part of her preparation for her new job. And from her new point of view as the general's chief jailer it was of course much better for him to be absorbed in history than taking too strong an interest in current events.
    Everyone in the Eight Worlds knew the Prince's story. And a good many had heard it beyond the Eight, out on those hundreds of worlds composing what its members considered to be the human mainstream of Galactic civilization. Since the news had spread of her assignment as commander here, it had sometimes seemed to Anne Blenheim that everyone in the inhabited Galaxy had an opinion on the Prince—the general—and each was ready to give her their version of good advice on how to deal with the great man who was now in her charge. Some said quietly that, though of course it was not in her power to do so, he really should be released. Some said he should be executed, that the Council of the Eight Thrones would never be safe until he was dead. And there were plenty of intermediate opinions. The Council should restore him to power as Prime Minister under the Empress. Or they should send him as ambassador plenipotentiary to Earth. Or confine him in a solitary cell for life.
    As she kept telling other people firmly, her new job really gave her nothing to say, even in an advisory capacity, as to which of those courses should be adopted. The Compact of Exile, a complicated agreement by which the Templars had accepted responsibility for Harivarman's confinement and welfare, left her as base commander little room for altering the terms of the general's existence. And jailer was not really the