This is a fan translation of Emperors of Illusions (Императоры иллюзий) by the Russian science fiction and fantasy author Sergei Lukyanenko. The novel is a sequel to Lukyanenko's Line of Dreams (Линия грёз) novel and can be considered a fan fiction of the original Master of Orion game.

Chapter 10

According to regulations, the destroyer was supposed to have three assault shuttles on board. The pleasure yacht it had been turned into carried one shuttle and six Grasshoppers. Dutch spent half an hour in the hangar, examining all six of them and trying to choose the best one. Then he gave up. The tiny ships were as reliable as possible. Any identifying marks had already been removed from all nodes.

"Weapons?" Seiker inquired.

Kay shook his head, "All I need is a Hornet. If Lemak catches up to me, then shooting myself will be my only option."

"I wish you luck."

They spent a long time staring into one another's eyes. Then Kay chuckled, "It's too bad that Imperial cruisers weren't able to shield Shedar half a century ago."

"We choose our own path, Kay. I don't believe that you'd have become a peaceful linguist and I the planet's Minister of Economy."

"Lyka, if we don't see one another again—"

"Don't, Kay."

Dutch fell silent. The old woman, who was his own age, was giving him a sad and stern gaze. He hadn't been able to become her equal… not in the least. Not when they were little, when he'd played in the lagoons of Shedar, allowing her to watch over him like an older sister. Not during their youth, when he refused to join the Family, where Seiker had already earned a position. Not after growing up, when he was using up one aTan after another, staying young… with all the consequences of an eternally youthful body.

"Far away, the wave moves…" Kay whispered in the Shedar dialect.

Seiker gave him a barely perceptible smile and continued,

"I swim to the wave, I want to take off
To the skies, and see you…"

Coming up behind them, Tommy stopped. Kay was looking only at Lyka.

"Like a dark spot on the shore, in the foam of the surf,
I love you, you've always known that.
I want to always see you.
That is why I swim farther and farther away from the shore.
Far away, the big wave moves…"

Seiker touched his shoulder.

"This is the only way you can love, Kay."

"There are too many waves, Lyka."

"Only for those who don't like shores. Go, brother. Swim, Kay."

Dutch touched her cheek with his lips. He glanced at Andrey, a motionless figure of steel, plastic, and remains of the flesh.

"Keep her safe, okay? You are no longer capable of love, but memories are more reliable than love."

"Don't worry, Dutch," the cyborg said.

Kay turned. He looked at the nearest Grasshopper: a three-meter sphere of the cabin, held up on trusses over the disk of the hyperdrive. Two plasma engines, ribbed cylinders two meters long, were attached directly to the disk.

"Come on, Tommy," he said. "Let's get this thing flying."

He didn't look at Lyka again. Not when he was climbing the braces that led to the cabin, and not when he was sealing the tiny round hatch. The Grasshopper shuddered as the hoist dragged it to the outer hatch, but Kay waited for the gravity to disappear, only then activating the viewscreens. The destroyer's armored hull was covering half of the starscape.

"Turn on the gravitator!" Tommy shouted, tumbling at the center of the cabin. "I hate zero-g."

"This thing doesn't have a gravitator," Kay reached out and pulled Tommy into the seat next to his.

"What does it have?"

"Supposedly there's a drive," Dutch activated the navigation console, which was tiny and incredibly ancient. "Did you go to the bathroom like I suggested?"

Tommy did not reply.

"Well then, you're about to experience a lot of interesting adventures."

The auditorium of the Imperial Information Network was full. Curtis van Curtis swept his gaze over the journalists.

Many. A great many. Each newspaper on Tauri had sent a reporter, not to mention the columnists and reporters from other planets, who had happened to be a part of the Emperor's retinue. It was unlikely that anyone suspected that a series of tiny and unfortunate misunderstandings that had prevented some of the journalists to come was not an accident.

"I am pleased to see you, my friends…" Curtis smiled, and the room applauded politely. "It's been a while since we've met last… forty years, wasn't it?"

"Forty-three," someone in the auditorium noted. "You've not very sociable, van Curtis!"

"Work, work…" Curtis spread his hands. "Ah, I see familiar faces! Luke, from the Imperial Military Review, isn't it? You haven't aged a day, maybe some of the credit is mine here. Dolores… Khokheira… Women of Terra and Fieras, if I'm not mistaken."

A human and a Mrrshan woman in the front row nodded simultaneously.

"Well, women don't need aTan, they already know the secret of eternal youth," Curtis bowed.

If the journalists knew that it was the work of Curtis's analysts rather than that of his incredible memory, they weren't about to show it. Only the Mrrshan female's ears twitched slightly… which was a sign of either excitement or offense.

"You are probably trying to guess what it is I'm about to tell you. A live broadcast… tons of money… and I won't disappoint you. Just don't think that the aTan Corporation is lowering its immortality costs; unfortunately, that's not possible at the moment."

There was laughter in the audience.

"But don't hope that we're stopping our operations or raising the costs…"

More laughter, but a little nervous this time.

"The truth will be more unexpected. The aTan Corporation is offering a new kind of service to the citizens of the Empire! The Line of Dreams!"

There was silence and anticipation.

"The screen," Curtis waved his arm, and the screen behind him came alive, "is showing the external appearance of the system. We aren't afraid of industrial spies and don't feel the need to patent the device. Go ahead, copy it… The Line of Dreams is my gift to humankind, and I'm certain it's far more useful than aTan. In the recent times, we have studied the nature of reality extensively. And we have come to an interesting conclusion: any imaginable world, any universe, no matter how fantastic from our point of view, is potentially out there. There are worlds where rivers flow upstream and humans can fly. There are worlds that appear to be identical to ours, but, for example, my modest musical skills would be treated there as much as we value Michele-Michele's talent."

No one was smiling. No one asked the Master of Life and Death to sing a few verses.

"Each of us has dreams," Curtis went on pensively. "Unattainable dreams… after all, the Empire can't have a billion Emperors and a million great singers. But somewhere near, beyond our reality, there are potential worlds, where these dreams can be realized. I give them to you. I give you the Line of Dreams, a device capable of transporting each of us to an ideal world. Our own world."

There was silence. Everyone was waiting for him to continue… but Curtis said nothing. There was movement in the back rows, and a short heavyset man stood up from his seat uncertainly.

"Ah, the inimitable Oleg Sinitsyn from Tauri TV!" Curtis nodded. The tiny prompter on his earlobe was working perfectly. "Go ahead."

"Tauri television…" Sinitsyn muttered. "Tauri, naturally…"

"Ask, please."

"If I imagine a world where I will be… umm… the standard of shapeliness and beauty," Sinitsyn gave a forced smile, "will the Line of Dreams transport me to that world?"

"Yes."

"What about a world where Tauri is the human homeworld instead of Terra?"

"Yes."

"What about—"

"Yes. Yes to everything. Any world. Any dream. Without limits."

There was a whisper in the auditorium. Hands shot up. Several people jumped to their feet. But Sinitsyn wasn't done yet.

"Will I retain my memories?"

"Of course. Otherwise there'd be no point to the Line of Dreams."

"So I will know that my appearance is fairly ordinary, that Tauri is just a wealthy colony, and that you are tone-deaf?"

Curtis forced himself to laugh, "That depends entirely on you…"

One of his analysts had made a mistake. Hadn't filtered out someone who knew how to ask unexpected questions. Bought the image of a talkative merrymaker.

Someone would pay for that mistake.

But another journalist was already getting to his feet. That one could probably claim to be the standard of shapeliness and beauty. Such reporters were typically only kept on staff of only the very successful publications, largely because their articles typically needed to be rewritten completely.

"Real Man, Terra… What will be the price to use the Line of Dreams?"

"Purely symbolic," Curtis was passingly amazed by the fact that a "real man" was asking about the cost, but just then was not the time to make jokes. "A tenth of the planetary cost of aTan."

"But…" the journalist grimaced, trying to make the simple calculation in his head. "Does this meant that the Line of Dreams will be affordable for virtually everyone?"

"It does."

The auditorium was finally filled with deafening noise.