Another small delay as I tried to die again. Was at hospital Emergency; apparently the overpriced bellhops who call themselves “MDs” never got round to mentioning that taking lisinopril, an ACE inhibitor, should be stopped after 5-8 years. When the ER doc found out I’d been on it for 11, I thought he would take a swing at me. Anyway, another angioedema attack and some IV meds followed by four days of prednisone. Slowly recovering. Again.

Recovering enough to get back to writing. As the Prologue started “in the middle,” as all good stories should, what will be the start of chapter one, below, backtracks to catch readers up on politics of the imperium and the Polar Alliance. There is an interesting backhanded mention of the main character.

“I’m a middle-aged man, Aurie.”  Robert Hartmann, one of the previous empress’ sons, knew the familiar bothered his cousin, the current empress.  He might be a son of the first empress, but she ruled, so he stood.  “And you are ordering me back into active service why?  I have grandkids to worry about.”

“If the Human Supremacists have their way, you won’t have grandkids anymore,” Empress Aurelia Hartmann snarked back.  A much harder person than her predecessor, she was, Robert had to admit to himself, likely the right person for the job right now.  “And, it’s not active service.  I have need of you down south in a semi-official capacity.  I, obviously, cannot go myself, so why not a canny Crown Prince with connexions to my imperium, Russia, and the Queen of Mars?”

“Which is your way of not paying me for this job?” He smiled to take the edge off of his words.

She reached back to where her legionary jacket was draped over the back of her chair in her office in Huntsville.  Pulling a silver piece out of a pocket, she flipped it to him.

“Unless you want twenty-nine more?” she continued to snark.

“Not remotely funny, Aurie.” But he did keep it.  “And what will I find down south?  Are we talking Mexico City or even further?”

“Not at all.  Just to the lands of my Dual-Monarchy,” she replied, finally calming down that they were talking business.

“The Texians do not like that term, Empress,” he said more formally, as it could provoke a diplomatic row.  His mother had negotiated gentle agreements of Friend and Ally with the neighboring republic, but Aurelia refused to budge on a colony of theirs on Mars unless they recognized her overlordship.  She had in mind the Compromise of 1867 between Austria and Hungary.  The Texians did not.  The simplest work-around had been to not talk about it and keep imperials out of Texas as much as possible.

“And you want to disturb our delicate balance, why?” Robert asked.

“A single member of our family, whose permanent home is in St. Petersburg, is not that much of a disturbance for a day or three.” She drank some water.  “Assuming you don’t do anything stupid, Robbie.”

“I am just a ‘normie,’ as Mom let slip from time to time, he countered, pouring himself some, too, when she didn’t offer any.  “When it comes to trouble, that’s the specialty of you demis.”

“And Fusions.”

“And Fusions,” he admitted, thinking of the issues of Redding and Nazca.  “So:  the assignment?”

“There is a monster in Houston.  I want you assess the threat to me, my imperium, and the tottering Polar Alliance, which finds itself deeper into civil war.”

“A what?” he demanded.