“That is excellent. That is as it should be,” Pshing said. “If only we could arrange to confiscate the submersible boats of the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as well, we would truly be on our way toward a definitive conquest of this miserable planet.”

“I merely thank the spirits of Emperors past”-Atvar cast both his eye turrets down to the floor of the aircraft that carried him-“that neither of the other powerful not-empires chose to join the Deutsche against us. Together, they could have hurt us much worse than the Reich alone did.”

“And now we also have the Nipponese to worry about,” Pshing added. “Who knows what they will do, now that they have learned the art of constructing explosive-metal weapons? They already have submarines, and they already have missiles.”

“We never did pay enough attention to islands and their inhabitants,” Atvar said fretfully. “Small chunks of land surrounded by sea were never important back on Home, so we have always assumed the same would hold true here. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be so.”

Before Pshing could answer, the aircraft’s landing gear touched down on the runway outside Nuremberg. The Race’s engineering, slowly refined through a hundred thousand years of planetary unity, was very fine, but not fine enough to keep Atvar from feeling some bumps as the aircraft slowed to a stop.

“My apologies, Exalted Fleetlord.” The pilot’s voice came back to him on the intercom. “I was given to understand repairs to the landing surface were better than is in fact the case.”

Peering out the window, Atvar saw Deutsch males in the cloth wrappings that singled out their military drawn up in neat ranks to greet and honor him. They carried rifles. His security males had flabbled about that, but the Reich remained nominally independent. If some fanatic sought to assassinate him, his second-in-command in Cairo would do… well enough. “What was the name of the sly Big Ugly who suggested this course?” he asked Pshing.