In the Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling

forces allows . . .
    “The knowledge is no longer so closely held as would best suit my purposes,” Sajir went on. “You will understand that multiple factions wish the official and perceived reality to be made objective truth, lest the pleasantly empty field left after my long-anticipated departure should prove not so empty after all.”
    “But you do not so wish, Supremacy?” the guard captain said, his voice neutral as the cool water in the fountain.
    “I never did.” Sajir’s eyes closed again, this time against remembered pain. “As evidence, she lives.”
    “But Vowin does not—interrogative-hypothetical?”
    “Certain courses of action were . . . necessary. If she had waited longer to make herself receptive to fertilization, as I instructed . . . But you of the Thoughtful Grace are headlong. And there was doubt as to my own survival at the time. The arrival of the vas-Terranan machines disturbed a most delicate balance.”
    Notaj blinked, integrating the information. “She must have been willing to undertake death by infestation in order to secure the Lineage,” he said; there was a hard pride in his tone. “She was, as you say, youthful and headlong, but a fine strategic analyst, and ruthless. And genetically ambitious. To bear the first outcross of the Tollamune line in ten millennia . . .”
    Sajir sa-Tomond let his shoulders and head fall into a pose of acceptance. “So she said. Such pride was worthy of eugenic elevation. We of the Dynasty have hugged our seed too close, to the detriment of Sh’u Maz .”
    The guardsman gestured agreement-with-reservations; unspoken was the reason for that—the tools of power responded to the genome, not the individual. Too many Emperors had died at the hands of their own close kin for any to forget it. So their numbers had dwindled across the millennia and their own long life spans.
    As have the water and atmosphere of the Real World itself , Sajir thought. This is a congruity far too apt for comfort .
    “There are many factors to be considered,” Notaj said. “Your demise would, with a high degree of probability, be expedited if anheir were anticipated, but not yet in place and aligned with effective power. Those disaffected elements content to wait now for their chance would act precipitately in that hypothesis.”
    “True. Therefore the heir must be found, brought to Dvor Il-Adazar, and put in an unassailable position. Those who wish to kill or capture her—”
    “Capture her?”
    Both words were separately in Interrogative; the guardsman raised two fingers to his brow in apology. Sajir sa-Tomond moved a hand in a gentle curve that covered his words in a glow of affection:
    “The offspring was female. And there is the vas-Terranan to be considered. There are implications of possession of the Tollamune genome that you do not know; suffice it to say that the Terran requires access to the genome. Prince Heltaw sa-Veynau, for example, wishing to rule through a puppet and gain access to the Tollamune genome. Possibly others, but certainly him.”
    “The Terran?”
    “Him. Unfortunately, he is necessary to my purposes. And I very much depreciate the high-probability consequences of his no longer needing me .”
    “I will begin contingency planning immediately,” Notaj said. “The necessary information, Supremacy—identity and location?”
    He gave the data—keys to the files, rather—and watched the brisk efficiency of the commander’s stride out of the entrance with wry amusement.
    Then the man halted and turned in the doorway, his eyes going to the atanj board.
    “Twenty- five moves, Supremacy.”
    That also reminded him of a woman dead many years.
    His loyalty is absolute, though intelligent and independent , the Tollamune thought. And now I have activated his own Lineage ambitions. He will operate at maximum efficiency. To promote this is to sustain harmony .
    With a sigh he rose from the recliner and walked to the crystal throne. Eddies moved