Chapter 6It's a party for them, but not for us, Drucilla thought, pausing to look at a holo.
Imperial Laundry Maid Drucilla Kanelos frowned at the bustle around her, all ten thousand of the Empress's personal staff in an uproar. In the middle of the night, the order to pack had descended upon the service staff like a cloud of locusts.
A tour of the Empire was an obligatory part of any Emperor's investiture. The service staff could have guessed they'd have to pack for an extended excursion. The Imperial space liner, the Prince George, named after the first Monarch of Greece back on Earth, was kept in orbit, stocked, provisioned, and ready to depart at a moment's notice for exactly such occasions. The exigencies of ruling such vast domains as the Gaean Empire were likely to whisk its rulin
