Denner_s Wreck

Most of these died eventually, by violence or from disease, but a few managed to survive. Daughters did very poorly; bearing children in those primitive times significantly increased their risks.

His son Peter was the oldest survivor. He was born when Shadowdark was less than a century old and still living in his native land.

The second was Thaddeus. He was born in a land that had been conquered and abused by Shadowdark's people; Gamesmaster provided the name and date, but neither meant anything to Bredon. He ignored all the names and dates on Terra as essentially meaningless; the only important fact was that this land was being mistreated by Shadowdark's countrymen.

Shadowdark had fled to this place at the age of a century or so, no longer welcome in his own country, and had taken a local woman as his wife. The marriage had not been happy, and Thaddeus was not a happy child-particularly not after his father abandoned him and his sisters.

Gamesmaster displayed an image of Thaddeus, and Bredon asked, “Why is he called Thaddeus the Black? He isn't much darker than I am."

“I don't know,” Gamesmaster said. “I suppose it has something to do with his temper, or his record."

“Oh.” Bredon shut up, and Gamesmaster continued.

Shadowdark and Thaddeus found each other again decades later, and were, in time, apparently reconciled with one another, their disagreements not so much forgotten as temporarily set aside. They saw one another off and on over the centuries, sometimes travelling together or even living together for a time, but the relationship always had its unpleasant side. The only thing that really held them together, far more important than their blood relationship, was their shared memories. They were the only people still alive who remembered the land of Thaddeus's birth and the people they had known and loved there. Peter, the only other person of approximately the same age, did not visit that land until centuries later, when everything had been altered beyond recognition.

When he was nearing two thousand years of age, Shadowdark went through a bad period. Gamesmaster could provide no details, but apparently the enforced isolation and duplicity of being an immortal in a world of mortals had driven him temporarily insane. When he recovered, he decided that he needed a goal, something worthy of an immortal, something that would distract him and that might somehow put an end to his loneliness.

What he hit upon was the accumulation of wealth and power. He had pursued both before, but had never bothered to hold onto them for long. Neither greatly interested him in and of itself.

Now, however, what he intended to do was to buy himself into a position where he could reveal his immortality without fearing that jealous mortals would kill or imprison him.

At first he had pla

When he had his planet, finally, he needed something to do with it, and therefore set out to conquer others, as well. It gave him something to do to pass the time, something that he had not done before.

The end result was the Imperium, which at its peak united twenty-four worlds under Shadowdark's absolute rule. This, Gamesmaster noted, was long after De

“Why didn't he go to another world sooner, then?” Bredon asked. “Why didn't he come here?"

“Because he wanted a world of his own, not just to be a member of a colony."

“But if he'd lived so long, had so much experience, couldn't he have conquered a planet like this one?"

“Well, yeah, he probably could have, but he didn't."

“Why not?"

“How the hell should I know? I'm just a dumb machine; all I know is what's in the records or what people have told me, all right?"

“All right,” Bredon said, somewhat cowed by this outburst.

“May I go on?"

“Please, go on."

“Thank you.” Gamesmaster paused, in imitation of a human gathering his wits, and then continued its tale.

Like everything else, it explained, even absolute power will eventually bore an immortal. Furthermore, during Shadowdark's reign on Alpha Imperium artificial immortality, using tailored symbiotes and genetic reprogramming, had been developed and become widespread, so that he no longer needed to disguise his agelessness. In time, he lost interest in the Imperium and left.

Before leaving, however, he located his son Peter, and appointed him as the new ruler in his stead. To leave the empire without a monarch would have been u

Peter, however, found he had little taste for power, and furthermore was not very good at wielding it. After less than a century he grew tired of the whole thing and turned it over to Thaddeus.

Thaddeus enjoyed power very much. Unfortunately, he was far worse than his father or half-brother at using it. His brutal abuse of his subjects and utter ineptitude in ru

Sure enough, as Shadowdark had feared, the Imperium immediately collapsed, and Alpha Imperium sank into barbarism. Stupid little wars between different factions destroyed almost its entire civilization.

Centuries later Thaddeus reappeared, still on Alpha Imperium, at the heart of the fallen empire. He tried to conquer the planet and to restore the Imperium to its former power and glory.

He failed miserably, and was overthrown once again. He did manage to build a single starship on a planet that had a technology little better than Bredon's people had on De

What his purpose might have been in rejoining Shadowdark Gamesmaster did not know and did not care to guess. Whatever the reason, he stayed with Shadowdark and his current group of companions-playmates, really-for a couple of years, and accompanied them on their jaunt in search of De

Now, though, four hundred and sixty-two years later, Geste suspected that Thaddeus might be returning to his vicious and warlike ways, and feared that he pla

Thaddeus had a good chance, too, because the other immortals on the planet were disorganized and generally harmless.

“Harmless?” Bredon yelped. “The Powers are harmless?"

“To each other, yes,” Gamesmaster replied. “Not to you mortals, no, but to each other."

Of them all, it explained, only Aulden the Technician really understood all the technology they used, only Aulden had the capacity to create entirely new technology, and Aulden had disappeared while visiting Thaddeus. Only Bre