-----
 
 

  Red and Purple never finished the remainder of their lessons. No one had the time, and no one saw the need.

  It wasn't illegal for a Tallest child to ascend the throne before his maturity if his predecessor passed away. It had happened several times in the past. But like as not, it was just as treasonous to kill an heir to the throne as the emperor himself. Both Red and Purple were heirs to the throne. When they became adults, one would be an heir and the other would be competition.

  And so, as in all times in the past when the same issue had been brought up, it was decided to allow both to live. A date was set for an official measuring. And on unspoken agreement, it would be followed by an official execution.

  Purple spent a lot of time in his new chambers in the palace. He asked meals sent to his room and that no one was to disturb him. Red tried anyway. Several times every day.

  Finally he decided to use the same approach as with his backpod: he stopped asking and started ordering.

  "Open the door."

  "I don't see why I should."

  "Look, we need to talk, Teir."

  "Purple," the Tallest candidate said icily from behind the door. There was a long, cold silence. And then a sigh from within the room. "Just go away, Red."

  Enough was enough, Red decided. He pressed himself against the door and hissed just loud enough to pass through the metal. "It wasn't my decision back there, you jerk. You left me no option. And if anyone ever--"

  The door slid away, screeching across Red's cheek that had rested against it, leaving a livid dark green mark. As he came into Purple's view on the other side of the door, two things happened to the violet-eyed Irken. The first was a very blank stare. The second involved his face contorting as he tried to suppress a snicker.

  "You can't stay serious, can you?" Red demanded, scowling. He walked briskly inside.

  And the door shut. After a while there was murmuring. Then, slightly raised voices. Then heated arguement. All of this, heard through the walls, was indistinct, and no one passing by could have known the details of their debate.

  There was a pause. A heavy, dominating silence, and time for the two Irkens inside stood still.

  Then there were brief murmurs. Low, indistinguishable sounds.

  A small time later, a telecom message to the kitchens ordered for dinner to be sent up to Purple's chambers again for the night. And it that it would be dinner for two.
 
 

  Red opened the shutters to let the blue moonlight flood the dark room. Then he leaned back on the seat again, resting on his arms, and looking out.

  "I remember you being taller," he said after a while.

  "I guess I stopped growing," Purple said quietly, from a chair on the opposite end of the room. He, too, gazed out at the night sky.

  After more silence, Red tilted his head to the left to look at the dark figure of Purple, only a white outline and a glimmer of his violet eyes present in the moonlight. "What will happen to you?"

  "I'll die."

  "I'll pardon you."

  Silence.

  "You insult me," Purple said gruffly. Red saw the edge of Purple's eyes shorten in the moonlight, indicating that he was narrowing them. "If I was pardoned, what then? Go off to be a frycook? I have no skills. You and I were raised with one purpose in mind. When one of us fulfills that purpose, the other one is rendered useless."

  Red paused. His antennae lowered and his round, rust-red eyes lost their sparkle. Sadness edged his voice. "You want to die..."

  "It isn't that," said Purple quickly, although more uncertainly than he'd've liked.

  "What is it, then?"

  "...I don't know."

  There was another long silence. Nothing more could be said on the subject, even if nothing had been resolved.

  Eventually Purple spoke up again, changing the topic. "You loved her."

  It was the single most embarassing thing an Irken could ever be accused of, and Red's initial reaction was to vehemently deny it. But sitting on the couch quietly, looking out at the second moon and thinking of everything that he and Purple had discussed since that afternoon, he found this wasn't the place to lie.

  "Yes."

  "I think I envy you."

  Red hunched forward, elbows on his legs and hands resting limply between them. "You shouldn't. It hurts."
 
 

  The measuring took place outside in the palace courtyard, exposed to the polluted air but not, thanks to high walls, to anything else. Dirn and the other chief advisors were present. So was Gori, standing proudly in a new advisor's uniform.

  Red and Purple stood barefoot in the middle of the cement courtyard, twelve feet apart. They had forgone their schoolhouse uniforms --not entirely by choice-- for very plain, unornamented black body suits. Purple noticed that his had violet accents and Red had crimson ones. The council was playing up the name association too much, and neither of them were even rulers yet.

  A couple of assistants, aided by hover platforms, scuttled around and up and down both candidates, correcting posture to ensure maximum height. Red and Purple were instructed to keep from any unnecessary movement. And of course, even glancing at one another was an unnecessary movement the advisors were quick to frown on.

  Finally the assistants were hurried away and two telescreens descended, equipped with unique optical outputs designed specifically to determine and record precise height, to the smallest known unit of measurement. And for a society with emphasis on height, the smallest unit of measurement was very small indeed.

  The telescreens lowered to near the ground to the sides of Red and Purple with their screens facing the assemblage of advisors, and their optics started scanning each candidate, starting at the feet. They rose slowly and at the same rate, while onscreen a very long number rose with it. As the telescreens reached the top and tallied the final billionth of a centimeter from each, there was a small chime to denote completion.

  Purple and Red were aware of a very loud silence behind them. They heard Dirn swallow.

  "Have them measure again," she said, her throat dry.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Staring at nothing but the faraway courtyard wall, Red and Purple gave very puzzled looks. Neither saw the other's expression. And neither one could figure out what had been wrong with the measurement.

  The hums proceeded once more as the telescreens conducted their tally once again. When finished, there was another chime from each. By now Purple was beginning to suspect something, mostly from how he couldn't detect a difference between when one chime started and when the other one did.

  They couldn't really be...?

  The odds of it are a hectillion to one! Purple thought frantically.

  Both candidates were aware of the heated murmurs behind them. Dirn began asking that the telescreens take another measurement, but the other advisors cut her off. There was no point, they said. The scales have never been wrong, they said.

  "Now what?" cried Gori.

  Red, meanwhile, stifled a wheeze. "Can we breathe again yet? Only it's getting kinda hard to keep this up..."

  "Go ahead!" Dirn snapped angrily. "Go right on ahead!"

  Purple and Red exhaled sharply, and began recovering their breath. Both of them slumped an inch or so. Purple, while staying in place, looked over his shoulder.

  "What's the problem?"

  The advisors were no longer in a V formation with Dirn at the lead, but had retreated into a cluster. They all looked at Purple with the most astonishing blend of embarassment and horror. He turned around to look at them better, and Red did the same.

  One of the advisors, whom Red and Purple did not know, cleared his throat and fidgeted. "Y-you see... Something... quite unprecedented... has... has occured, sirs."

  "'Unprecedented,'" Purple echoed. He turned his gaze to Red, who was staring back. A thousand emotions fit into that face. Disbelief high among them. Purple knew that he bore the same expression, that same mixed expression.

  Another advisor spoke up. "You see, sirs... You're... Well.... You're the same height, sirs. Exactly."

  After those words were spoken, all other sound was blocked out. Red stared at Purple, Purple stared at Red, their eyes wide and unblinking. Purple began to feel a shortness of breath.

  "Same height?!" Red demanded fiercely, his emotionless expression turning into a furious glare. "You were over an inch shorter than me last night!"

  The violet-eyed Irken had to force himself to stop shaking. He stammered, "I... I'd taken to hunching..."

  "Same height! Same height! What the nova happens now?!"

  Dirn appeared lost for a moment. She turned to Gori. "P-perhaps the older of the two? Which one was germinated first?"

  "Te-- Purple, ma'am. By five seconds."

  This didn't appear to be the happy news that Dirn was expecting. That small margin put Purple in the lead over the person everyone expected from the first to be Tallest. But that wasn't right! Purple was the underdog! He was the one everyone suffered quietly because they believed he'd be gone soon.

  "We can't let..."

  Red had started towards Purple, who was in the beginnings of going into a crouch. But Red's expression, while angry, was not hostile, and Purple stood up straight. Red stopped about a foot away from the other Irken, and for the first time in a long while Purple stood at his full height of his own will, and the two looked eye to eye.

  Then the pressure became too much and Red turned away, laughing. Purple chuckled a little.

  And then they drew their guns.

  *click* *click*

  Red narrowed his eyes, staring at Purple over the barrel of the gun. A similar one pointed at the violet-eyed Irken's own head.

  "You don't have the nerve," Purple hissed, so that only they could here the actual words. "You only fired the last time because you were too scared not to. It's one thing to shoot robots and another to fire at a person, isn't it?"

  "Shut up."

  A single shot rang out in the courtyard. All the advisors flattened their antennae against their head, jolted.

  Purple staggered back, clutching at his right shoulder, which gushed dark blood.

  "Idiot," he coughed, fumbling to grasp the gun from his right hand before he dropped it. "I knew it, I knew you didn't have the nerve..."

  "I shot you!" Red cried, shaking a little. "What more do you want?!"

  "You didn't kill me!" Purple roared. He drew the gun up with his left arm, and fired. Red, dodging to his left, easily avoided the shot. Frustrated, Purple fired again, and again.

  Red jumped back as a shot struck the ground where his feet had stood. Antennae curling up in fear, Red retreated into a run, bounding over the hedges and ducking behind the artificial tree by the eastern wall. Looking out between branches, Red fired another shot. Purple bent low and the laser fire went by harmlessly overhead, scorching the far western wall.

  Purple began running sideways to his right, firing twice at Red's hiding place and succeeding in blasting off one of the branches. Yelping, Red escaped from under the falling plastic branches, running along in the perimeter's hedge while dodging fire. If he could get to the next tree in the corner of the courtyard, he could hold out for a little--

  Despite his poor aim with his off arm, Purple finally landed a successful hit, going through part of Red's torso. Red gave a cry of pain and faltered, tumbling to his hands and knees.

  "We have to make them stop!" one of the advisors wailed.

  Dirn hushed him into silence. "They're solving our problem for us."

  Purple approached Red, bent over in the dirt and panting heavily. The black material masked the blood, but the growing dark pool under Red was a clear indication of the magnitude of the wound.

  Once again the gun felt heavy in Purple's hand. His antennae went limp. "Wanna call it quits?"

  Red turned his head, muscles screaming. He stared up at Teir. Then got shakily to his feet.

  "Heh..." Red managed.

  Purple nodded. There was complete understanding. No. No quits.

  Red lept forward, swinging his fist. Purple leaned backwards and the hand swiped air. He backed up and Red advanced, arm coming up for another swing, and Purple brought up his right arm to block it, remembering all too late of its damage. Purple howled in pain and staggered back, and Red, with the arm holding the gun, rammed hard into Purple's chest.

  But the violet-eyed Irken did not fall. Ignoring the burning pain in his arm, he gripped Red's arm with his right hand. Holding him there, Purple brought up his left leg and swung as forcefully as he could manage into Red's side.

  Purple's grip released, Red fell to the ground. He swung his legs around and tripped up Purple before the latter could move to safety, and as Purple began to fall Red shot up and tackled him, knocking the air from his lungs. Both Irkens fell to the cement hard and Purple cried out in pain; the utility pack forced his spine into a horrible angle.

  Red pushed himself up and rested back, straddling Purple's waist.

  The two panted heavily, staring into one another's eyes.

  With a small grunt of effort from his tired arms and the wound in his torso, Red brought up the gun. He held it steady with two hands and pointed it between Purple's eyes.

  An agonizing silence, punctuated only by the two boys' labored breathing.

  Do it, something in Red said. Do it and you'll be the Tallest, you'll the ruler of all of Irk and all the worlds it owns. Do it and you can execute Gori and the other nurses; you can omit Rarg from history. Be the Tallest and be everything.

  Everything without Teir is nothing, thought Red weakly. He's all that's left that can ever remind me of Sut. And if I kill him then Sut really will be dead...

  Red's arms went lax, and the gun dropped. He cast it aside, and hung his head.

  *click*

  Purple had brought up his own gun, and was holding it right against Red's forehead. The hot metal burned into Red's pale skin. But the rust-eyed Irken's expression did not change. Purple saw only the face of an overtired, agonized creature who hadn't the strength to fear anymore.

  "Heh... Hehe..." chuckled Purple, going crosseyed. His face split into a hysterical grin. "I... I can't... Hehehe...I can't..." For but a moment, his former resolve reappeared on his face. Purple pressed the gun firmly to Red's forehead. But his eyes grew watery and his voice cracked as he spoke. "Why can't I...?"

  And then Purple's laughter was the only sound that filled the courtyard. The terrible, insane, pained laughter of one who believed it was always the other one that was going to crack, and had not noticed himself beginning to break.