Primary Inversion
by
Catherine Asaro

Table of Contents

PRIMARY INVERSION

Catherine Asaro

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Primary Inversion: Copyright ©1995 Catherine Asaro.

A Baen Ebook
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com

ISBN 10: 0-8125-5023-4
ISBN 13: 978-0-8125-5023-8

First ebook, February 2008

Electronic version by WebWrights
www.webwrights.com

To my husband
John Kendall Cannizzo
with love
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the people who gave
me input on my research and writing for this book:
Alis Rasmussen, Al Chou, Deborah Wheeler, Jim Brunet,
Shawna McCarthy, Gerald David Nordley, Florrie Michaelis,
Geoffry Landis, Kate Elliott, James Cannizzo, Marianne Dyson,
Lawrence Schmiel, Susan Shwartz, Dave Truesdale, Joan Slonczewski,
Lawrence Watt-Evans, Sheridan Simon, and everyone who answered
my questions in the research topics on the GEnie SFRT.
A special thanks to Clair Maier, who gave me extensive
benefit of her expertise in neuroscience,
and most of all, to my editor
David G. Hartwell.

Part One: DELOS

I
Island Of Sanctuary

Although I had known about Delos since I was a young woman, this was my first visit to the planet. Delos was a member of the Allied Worlds of Earth, who steadfastly maintained neutrality in the undeclared war between the Traders and my people, the Skolians. Despite the fact that we were all human—Allieds, Traders, and Skolians alike—we had little in common. So Earth declared Delos a neutral zone, sanctuary, a place where Trader and Skolian soldiers could walk together in harmony.

Right. Harmony was their word, not ours. You'd never catch one of us walking with a Trader soldier, in harmony or otherwise.

However, Delos was the planet easiest to reach in the region of space where my squad had been running drills to integrate our newest member, Taas, into the group. So Delos was where we went for our rest and relaxation.

The evening was warm as the four of us strolled the Arcade. A hodgepodge of stalls and shops stretched along the boardwalk, their eaves hung with wooden chimes that clacked in the wind. At the apex of each turreted roof, a pole reached toward the sky. Metal plates hung from the poles, clanking heartily as the wind tossed them against one another, their chatter melding with the voices of crowds milling below. It was a place of festival and laughter, a haven for the bright women in their flutter-yellow skirts, and for the strapping young men in billowing trousers who pursued them.

The boardwalk, however, bothered me. Its nervoplex surface shifted under our feet constantly, until I was gritting my teeth. Nervoplex supposedly heightened comfort and pleasure. The network of molecular fibers and nanochips woven into it reacted to the distribution of weight it experienced, letting the boardwalk analyze and interact with pedestrian traffic as if it sensed moods. A lot of people liked it, but it drove me nuts.

The four of us—Rex, Helda, Taas, and myself—walked alone. I wished we had civilian clothes. We weren't on duty, after all. But we just had our Jagernaut uniforms: black pants tucked into black boots, black vests, black jackets. In these bright crowds, all that dark leather drew attention like rocks falling into water. The river of pedestrians split around us as if we were big, hulking boulders. They were mostly Earth citizens, who weren't likely to have seen even one Jagernaut before, let alone four.

Rex glanced at me, his wickedly handsome face flashing with a grin. "You should start yelling and foaming at the mouth, Soz. That would clear this place out fast."

I glared at him. The "Jagernaut goes amok" plot was a favorite in the holomovies. We were bioengineered fighter pilots, elite officers in the Imperial Space Command of Skolia, or just ISC. The prospect one of us would go crazy and attack everyone in sight had made a lot of holomovie producers annoyingly rich.

"I'll foam your mouth," I grumbled.

Rex laughed. "That sounds interesting."

Helda spoke in her throaty accent. "You remember Garth Byler?"

Rex said, "He entered the Dieshan Military Academy as a cadet the year I graduated."

Helda nodded. She was as big as Rex, towering over Taas and me. Her thick hair hung around her face like honeycorn straw. "He went to a heartbender."

The nervoplex under my feet stiffened. I slowed down, trying to relax. I had no reason to tense up. None at all. Heartbender was just the slang we used for psychiatrists who treated Jagernauts that broke under the strain. But if one of us did snap, and it happened more often than ISC admitted, we did it quietly. Any violence was almost always directed inward, not at other people.

"What happened to him?" Taas asked.

"Went to the hospital," Helda said. "Then he retired."

I rubbed the back of my hand across my forehead. My breathing and pulse had sped up for some reason, and sweat gathered on my temples, dampening curls of my hair. It was bizarre.

Then I saw it. Across the Arcade, two people were watching us, a young man and woman dressed in imported jeans and glittery hotshirts. They looked like students, maybe lovers out for a stroll. Both stood staring at us, their snack-sticks dangling forgotten in their hands.

Tightness constricted around my chest. I stopped walking and took a breath. Block, I thought.

All I should have seen when I gave the Block command was a psicon, an image similar to the icons on a computer, except that psicons appeared in the mind. For some reason, a menu formed in my mind instead. I closed my eyes and the menu wavered like the afterimage of a bright light on my lids. When I opened my eyes, the menu seemed to hang in front of me like a holographic image:

Transfer
Block
Exit

The letters were in my personal font, which made them look as if they were carved out of amber. An image next to Block showed a neural synapse with a wall between the axon and dendrite. Huh. That was the Block psicon I had expected to flash in my mind. Instead here it floated, distracting me. Rex and Helda stood next to talking, oblivious to the list of words I saw superimposed on them.

For flaming sake. Why was this menu hanging in the air? Well, all right, I knew why. The mesh node implanted in my spine had accessed my optic nerve and produced it when I sent the Block command. Except it shouldn't have happened. I had set my systems to bypass this procedure. It was far too inefficient, not to mention distracting, to go through this process every time I gave a command to my spinal node. I should have just seen the flash of the synapse-and-wall psicon letting me know the node was working.

I formed another thought. Switch to Brief mode. I didn't refer to my spinal node by a name. Although I did for other nodes I worked with, doing it for one inside of me would be too much like calling myself by someone else's name, as if I were doubling or splitting my personality.

My node responded in its usual bone-dry verbiage. Recommend Verification mode. Too much time has passed since you last confirmed blocking operations.

So. It wanted to run a check. I knew the routine; it would show me every step it followed to execute the Block. Usually the process went at close to the speed of light, which was the limit to how fast signals could travel the fiberoptic threads in my body. Now it wanted me to plod through the whole routine to make sure it had no errors.

All right, I thought. Do the check.

The menu faded and a new image appeared, a blue silhouette of the two students staring at us. The node overlaid the image on the students so they seemed to glow with blue light. Input from these two sources exceeds safety tolerances.

I know that. For an empath like myself, the "input" was their fear: I felt it so intensely that sweat had formed on my temples. It's why I want you to block them.

My node thought, I am releasing a drug to inhibit the action of psiamine on the neurons in the para centers of your brain, including attachment to P1 receptors. Inhibition will continue until external input drops below your default safety tolerances.

Can't you just say you're blocking them? I grumbled.

I am blocking them, it obliged.

The onslaught of fear receded. As my shoulders relaxed, I thought, Procedure verified. Switch to Brief mode.

Brief mode entered.

I glanced around. Taas was standing next to me, staring at the students. Their fear radiated off him like heat from a red-hot ingot.

"Shut them out," I said softly.

He didn't move. He seemed mesmerized.

"That's an order, Quaternary," I said. "Initiate blocking."

Taas jerked. Then he closed his eyes. After a moment he looked at me.

"You all right?" I asked.

"Yes." He winced. "They caught me off guard."

"Me too," I admitted.

Rex glanced from me to Taas. Then he glanced at the students, and I felt him block their input. Although I couldn't pick up Helda as easily, her brief glazed look told me she had accessed her node. None of them took more than an instant; apparently their nodes weren't harassing them with verification procedures. Well, maybe harassing wasn't a fair word. I was the one who had told it to warn me when too long went by without a check.

"I don't know why I slipped up like that," Taas said.

"It's this blasted nervoplex." I motioned at the boardwalk. "It's like a mood enhancer." Taas and I were more sensitive to the effect, he as the least experienced member of the squad, and I as the strongest empath.

Helda frowned at the students. "Why are they so upset? What they think we do to them?"

"I get tired of evoking that reaction," Rex said. He pushed his hand through his hair, mussing up the black locks. No, not just black. More white showed at his temples every day.

But what was this? Why did Taas have that odd smile? "What's so funny?" I asked.

He flushed. "Ma'am?"

"Why are you grinning?"

He immediately stopped smiling. "Nothing, ma'am."

I laughed. "Taas, you don't need to say ma'am." In a group as tightly knit as ours, we let the formalities drop. "What's funny?"

"That boy had, uh, a different reaction to you than he did to the rest of us."

"Different?" I blinked. "How?"

"He thinks you're—uh . . ."

I waited. "Yes?"

Taas reddened. "He thinks you're sexy."

For flaming sake. "I'm old enough to be his mother!"

Helda laughed. "But you look like a youngster, Soz."

"I do not." In truth, she wasn't the first to tell me that.

Rex grinned, and I felt Taas relax. Our group tension trickled away. As Rex started to speak, his gaze shifted over my shoulder—and his smile disappeared like a door slamming shut. Puzzled, I turned to look.

Traders.

My good mood vaporized. Of course they didn't call themselves Traders. They were Eubians, members of the euphemistically named Eubian Concord. Five of them had invaded the boardwalk, all in grey military uniforms with blue piping on the trousers and crimson braid on the sleeves. Although it was hard to see their faces from this far away, I didn't think any had the red eyes of an Aristo. One did have an Aristo's finely chiseled features, the black hair, even the arrogant stance. And his hair glinted. But it didn't have that liquid shimmering quality so distinctive of an Aristo. He was probably some Aristo's by-blow—which made him no less dangerous to us.

They stared at us across the Arcade as if they had discovered slime oozing over the nervoplex. The crowds continued about their business, bustling between our group and the Traders, blissfully oblivious to the tension.

An odd fear grabbed me, one with a nurturing intensity, which certainly didn't match the Traders. Looking around, I saw a woman hurrying several children away from us. She glanced at the Eubians, then at us, and then urged her charges to speed up. The smallest boy balked, trying to head for a stall where sugar candles hung on a wire, dripping sugar confections instead of wax. The woman pulled him away, ignoring his loud protests as she sped him through the crowd. I didn't blame her. If I were a civilian who had seen four Jagernauts and five Eubian military officers in the same place, I would have laid fast tracks out of there, too.

Taas scowled at the Traders. "They can't just come here and walk around."

"What, you want them to get a license?" Helda asked. "We're harmonizing, remember?"

"They could be spying," Taas offered.

Rex was watching me. "What's wrong?"

"That tall one," I said. "He looks like Tarque."

Rex stiffened. "Tarque is dead."

Long dead. Ten years dead. I had killed him.

"Who is Tarque?" Helda asked. "It sounds Aristo."

Somehow I kept my voice steady. "It is."

Rex nudged my mind. After years of working together, he and I were close enough that I could catch his thoughts if he directed them at me with enough force.

Are you all right? he asked.

I took a breath, struggling to keep my pulse steady. Yes.

Helda was watching me. "Where you know this Tarque?"

"I went undercover on Tams Station ten years ago," I said.

"Tams?" Taas asked. "You mean the Trader planet?"

I nodded. "I got—caught."

"They broke your cover?" he asked.

"No. I don't mean that way." It was a moment before I could continue. "Ten years ago the Traders installed an Aristo governor on Tams, a man named Kryx Tarque. His people were making sweeps through the cities, selecting taskmakers to serve in his estates." Taskmaker was the generic name Aristos used for most of their slaves, which as far as they were concerned included everyone in the universe who wasn't an Aristo. "I got caught in a sweep."

Taas stared at me. "You've been a Trader server?"

"No." I spoke with a calmness I didn't feel. "A provider."

Taas blanched, and Helda's muscles bunched up along her shoulders. Provider. It was one of the ugliest Aristo euphemisms.

Helda rolled her shoulders like a fighter easing out knotted muscles. "How you escape?"

I shook my head. I couldn't talk about it. Across the Arcade, the Traders were talking among themselves, probably discussing the outrage our being allowed to walk on the same boardwalk as them.

Taas spoke awkwardly. "I'm sorry, Primary Valdoria. About Tams."

I tried to smile. "Call me Soz, all right?" I had told him that so many times I had lost count.

He reddened. "Yes, ma'am."

Helda's thought brushed my mind, far weaker than I had felt from Rex: I also am sorry. Then, more lightly: Give Taas time. You scare the bejeebs out of him.

Hey! Taas thought. I caught that. He glared at her. I have no bejeebs. Whatever they are.

Rex sent them a mental grin. That's because Soz scared them all off.

I tried to smile, knowing they meant to diffuse the tension. And I should be pleased; it was the first time Taas had succeeded in joining our link without help from our ships. But I couldn't stop staring at the Traders. They had started to walk, keeping watch on us as they receded into the crowds.

"Looks like we bore them," Helda said.

Taas shifted his feet back and forth like a ball player waiting for his opponent to make a move. "We can't let them walk away."

"What justification would you give for anything else?" I asked.

"They're Traders," Taas said. "Isn't that enough?"

I tilted my head toward the Allied police officers who had gathered in the area, their blue and silver uniforms easy to spot among the crowds. "I doubt they would agree."

Taas scowled. "If it wasn't for us, the Traders would have long ago taken over their Allied Worlds. They should be grateful we're here."

I smiled slightly. "If it wasn't for the Traders keeping us occupied, we might have long ago taken over their Allied Worlds."

Taas's forehead creased. "Don't you hate the Traders?" He hesitated. "Especially after—"

"Brawling in the street won't serve any purpose," I said. "It also happens to be illegal here."

Helda shrugged at Taas. "We have better ways to occupy our time, Hoiya. I would like a drink, myself."

I had never quite figured out what Hoiya meant in Helda's language, but I thought it was something like "sweet young one." Taas had yet to realize it was more than a nonsense word she threw into her sentences. It was going to be entertaining to see her explain herself when he realized she was calling him a sweet boy.

Rex smirked. "Heya, Helda, Hoiya, you want to get drunk?"

"Hoiya yourself," Helda grumbled. Then she grinned. "Maybe a few drinks, heh?"

"I wouldn't mind," I said. A strong drink, the kind that obliterated memories.

* * *

Night had been pressing down on the sunset for over an hour, darkening the reddish-purple streak of sky along the horizon. A full day here lasted sixty-two hours, and the sunset clung to the sky as if it resisted giving up the light. Clouds streaked the horizon, their lower edges rimmed with a brilliant pink that deepened as the sunset withdrew behind the Arcade roofs. The heavens overhead had turned a deep violet. The Delos sun emitted more purple light than most human habitable planets, and the thin atmosphere scattered it less, giving the sky a purple tinge even here at sea level.

The Arcade was even more crowded now, as people took advantage of the respite from the heat. With thirty hours of sunlight, the temperature heated up a great deal during the day. It was more comfortable for humans in the evening, as the day cooled down.

We walked along a line of bars. Their holosigns lit up the dusk: a shocking pink flower glowing over a door, gilded insects flying in ellipses, a cluster of blue-green planets orbiting a blue giant star that could never really support such a solar system. Hologram screens sided most of the bars, spawning holos everywhere: poles of light rotated between buildings, swirling with gaudy purple and red stripes; luminous arches spanned the roofs; scampering animals sparked and popped like firecrackers as they ran up walls or morphed into different species.

Music jangled, raucous tunes mixing with seductive melodies. Sounds jumped out as we approached their sources and receded into the general buzz after we passed. Hawkers called out from doorways in a slew of languages. The ones I understood were trying to entice customers with promises of liquor and smoke-sticks, and seeds of the oilweed plant that set you to dreaming or to making love for hours. The smell of cooking meat and spices saturated the air.

I couldn't read most of the holosigns. Finally I pulled down a translation menu in my mind and overlaid it on an elegant sign that said "Constantinides."

Translate, I thought.

Greek, my node answered. Translation: Constantinides.

"Well, that helps a lot," I said.

"Where you want to go?" Helda asked.

I pointed to a rusty building. One pole topped its roof, with a few desultory circles that clanked in the wind. The holosign above the door was in English, the only language I had seen so far that I could even marginally read without a translator.

"Jack's Place," I said.

Rex peered at the bar. "It sounds vintage Earth."

Helda snorted. "It look vintage wreck."

"Come on, Helda." Rex laughed. "Be brave."

"Why you want to go to this place?" she demanded.

"Because," Rex said. "It looks like it has authentic old Earth atmosphere."

"This is good thing to have?" Helda asked.

I smiled, in a better mood than earlier. "Let's give it a try and see."

So we went inside, pushing open the door under the sign. Tables covered by red and white checked cloths filled the room. A counter stretched along one wall, its black top pitted with age. Stools lined the counter, each upholstered in a red material that shone from use. A man with stains on the white apron tied across his big stomach stood behind the counter, polishing a glass. A band was playing on a small stage in one corner. The instruments were unfamiliar: hourglass shaped boxes with strings pulled tight, gold horns with handles that moved in and out, and fat drums. The music had a compelling rhythm, a sensual blend of sound that made me want to dance with the young man who was singing. Garish cartoon holos flickered in front of panels that lined the stage.

A woman in a short skirt was waiting on the tables. Taas watched her with a boyish grin. "I like this place."

Rex smiled his agreement. "Let's sit at a table."

Helda glanced at Taas and tilted her head at the waitress. "Nice, hmm? But we better not fight. Save that for Traders. I'm too much bigger than you anyway."

Taas blinked at her. "What?"

"She doesn't want to fight you for the waitress," I said.

"Why would Helda and I fight over the waitress?"

"Beats me." I was no judge of beauty in women. Now in men, that was different. But to me the waitress just looked like a too young girl in a too tight skirt. It had to be cutting off her circulation.

Rex laughed. "Maybe the three of us should offer ourselves and let her pick."

"Hah," I said. "What makes you think she'd pick any of you?"

"The three of us?" Taas asked.

Helda leaned toward him. "Me, you, Rex."

Taas turned bright red. "You like women? Not men?"

"Of course," Helda said.

"Oh." Taas scratched his chin. "Well, you may be bigger than me, but I have more style."

The waitress came over and spoke shyly to Rex in English. "Would you like a table?"

He answered in Skolian, giving her his sexiest grin. "I have no idea what you're saying, but it sounds beautiful."

"She wants to know if we like tables," I said. I pulled down my translation menu. It hung over the waitress, who was looking from me to Taas to Helda. I knew I probably had the same glazed expression I saw on their faces.

Waiting, my node prompted.

Rex smiled at the waitress. "They're meditating," he said in Skolian.

She reddened, then looked around for someone who could help her.

Translate 'We would like drinks and food,' into English, I thought.

The waitress gave up looking for help and tried speaking to Rex again. "What can I do for you?" The Skolian translation of her words came into my thoughts, interfering with my attempt to translate what I wanted to say into English.

"Pah," I muttered. My node was optimized for combat, not translation. Maybe I should have added that diplomacy mod after all. It would augment my social skills and upgrade my language capability. But I had loaded the node to capacity with combat mods and libraries, and I had no intention of removing even one. My life might someday depend on it. I didn't want to enlarge the node again, either. My biomech system had reached the limit of what was considered safe even with state-of-the-art technology.

Besides, it wouldn't hurt me to practice English without a node whispering in my ear. Translation program end, I thought. As the menu vanished, I spoke to the waitress in the best English I could muster. "Is okay there we sit?" I motioned at a booth by the far wall.

"Certainly." The red color receded from her face, and my own cheeks cooled. She glanced at Helda and Taas, who both looked normal again, and her shoulders lowered. My own relaxed, too.

After taking some big cards from a nearby table, the waitress headed for the booth. As we walked behind her, she looked back at Rex and blushed. Following her glance, I noticed how tightly rex's pants fit. They clung to his well muscled legs like supple black leather, menacing and sexy at the same time. And those big hands. How did they feel when they—

"Why are you staring at me?" Rex asked.

"What?" I flushed. "I wasn't." Block, I thought. As the psicon flashed in my mind, the waitress's reaction to Rex receded in my thoughts. His pants looked normal again. Almost normal. She was right; it was sexy the way they fit him. I had never noticed it before, at least not consciously.

"Always," Helda muttered as we walked to the booth. "Always they want him."

"You mean Rex?" Taas asked.

"Ya." She tilted her head at me. "The boys always want her."

I laughed. "I seem to remember a few of them wanted Rex too."

At the sound of my laugh, the waitress jumped like a skitter-colt. She stopped at the booth and fumbled with the cards, dropping them onto the scratched table top. Then she turned to us. So we all stood and watched her, waiting to see what she would do. After a moment she turned pink.

"She wants us to sit down," Taas decided.

"So let's sit." Rex squeezed past her, putting his hand on her tiny waist in the process. Her face went from pink to bright red. Then the rest of us sat down.

The waitress spoke to Rex. "Would you like a drink?"

He answered in Skolian, his deep voice rumbling. "That lovely voice of yours could fill my dreams at night."

"If you get bored with him," Helda added, "you can have us." She motioned at Taas, who sat across the table. "Me and him. He's got style, I've got muscles."

"Excuse me?" the waitress asked in English.

"Leave her alone," I said. I picked up one of the cards she had put on the table. At the top, clear tubes filled with fluorescent yellow gas announced Jack's Place. Projection holos floated above speckled patches, each displaying a dish of food. When I turned the card, the holos showed different views of their offerings.

My translation program gave "synthetic meat sandwich" as the meaning of Hamburger. I tried Hot dog and got "synthetic meat sandwich." When Beef Bliss came up as "synthetic meat sandwich," I gave up and looked at the others. "What do you want?"

"Ale is fine," Rex said. Helda and Taas nodded agreement.

I spoke to the waitress in English. "You ale do?"

She peered at me. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"Ale," I repeated. "Got any?"

"You mean beer?"

I squinted at her. "I think."

"Dark or light?"

What did that mean? "Any kind. You prick." No that wasn't right. She was turning red again. I made another try. "You pick." I waved my hand at the others. "Four beers."

"All right." And off she went, but not before she gave Rex another one of her shy smiles.

Across the room, the door opened. A group came into the bar—and this time when my shoulders went rigid it was my own reaction, not anyone else's.

Traders. Six of them had showed up this time, the five we had seen earlier plus a man they were guarding. A man with shimmering black hair and red eyes.

Aristo.

As soon as they saw us, the Traders stopped. We all stared at one another. The bartender quit polishing his glass and set it under the counter.

Don't you hate them? Taas had asked. Hate was too mild. I saw the Aristo and my brain felt hot with memories of Tarque, the Aristo governor on Tams. Three weeks of torture. This Aristo stared at me with his ruby eyes, his black hair shimmering, and I wanted to break every perfect bone in his perfect face.

Steady, I told myself. Steady.

One of his bodyguards leaned toward him and spoke. I didn't need telepathy to know he suggested they find a bar with a higher class of clientele. But the Aristo shook his head. Then he settled on a stool at the counter.

"I can't just sit here while they drink." Taas was crumpling his menu in his hands. "I can't."

Rex nodded. "Let's go."

Helda stood up.

"Sit down," I said.

They all stared at me. Then Helda sat, her body stiff.

Rex nudged my mind, but I kept the door closed. My thoughts about Traders were private even from Rex. To say I had no desire to stay at the bar now was a profound understatement. It was also irrelevant. "Aristos don't come to Delos for vacations," I said. "He must be here for a reason. Our job is to find it out."

A muscle in Rex's cheek jerked. He'd had that twitch ever since he had seen what Tarque did to me, seen me so rigid with shock, fear, and pain, I couldn't speak.

Helda fingered her belt where her holster normally hung. None of us were armed with anything more than hidden knives. Even without a diplomacy mod, I knew how threatening it would have looked for us to stroll along the Delos boardwalk with the mammoth Jumbler guns on our hips. We had come here to rest, not to provoke the local authorities. The Traders hadn't been armed when we had seen them before, either, but now they all carried burn-lasers, complete with power packs clipped to their belts. It suggested the man they were protecting was high in status even for an Aristo.

"Watch them," I said. "See if you can pick up anything."

The waitress reappeared and set a glass in front of me filled with amber liquid. I didn't know much about Earth distillation processes, but I knew liquor. That wasn't ale, it was rum. My English must have been even worse than I realized.

I shook my head at her. "We beer have." I motioned at the others. "Beer. For all."

She swallowed. "It's a—" Her voice squeaked. "The man—he ordered it for you."

"What man?"

She nodded toward the Aristo. "Him."

I stared at her. Then I handed her the rum. I had to make a conscious effort not to shove it back in her hands so fast that it spilled.

Rex stood up and slipped his hand under her elbow. He drew her to the back of the room and out a door that probably led to the kitchen. I understood why he wanted her out of sight; if she was having the same effect on the Aristo that she had made on our group, she could be in trouble. But the Aristo hadn't even glanced at her. I was the one he was watching. I felt like bugs crawled on my skin.

Taas twisted his menu, distorting the holos into weird mish-mashes of color. "What do you want us to do?"

"Note everything you can about them," I said. "What they're wearing, how they sit, move, and speak. Store it in your memory. We'll feed it into the mesh later and see what we come up with."

Helda motioned toward some hologames in a corner. "From there I get a different view."

I nodded. "Go."

Across the room, the musicians finished their song. They looked at the Traders and us, then at one another. The drummer spoke to a horn player, and a sudden urge to get out of here made the muscles in my legs contract as if I were preparing to run. I had to force myself to sit still. Then again, maybe sitting wasn't the best choice. The stage had a better view of the Trader group.

"I can keep this side of the room covered," Taas said.

"Good." I smiled slightly. "I think I'll go for some music appreciation."

As I crossed the room, I felt the Aristo watching me. When I reached the stage I spoke to the singer, a man with dark hair. "Can you a song play?"

"What would you like?" he asked.

"You pick."

He nodded, but I had a feeling that what he really wanted was for us to leave, both my squad and the Traders. I didn't blame him.

The band started a slower piece with a sweet melody, and the man sang in a well trained baritone. Had the situation been different, I would have enjoyed it. I watched the Trader group in my side vision. So I saw when the Aristo stood up and came toward me. As he neared, I turned to him.

He stopped at my side and spoke in Skolian. "It's pleasant, isn't it?" His accent was pure Aristo from the elite Highton caste, the aristocracy of the aristocracy, overlords in the Trader hierarchy.

It was all I could do to keep from pulling the knife hidden in my boot. "What do you want?"

"To meet you."

"Why?"

He hesitated. "I meant no offense."

That didn't fit. I had met many Aristos, usually over long range communication but also in person during the sporadic and consistently failed attempts at peace we and the Traders had made. They always spoke to us with arrogance, often outright scorn. This one seemed to have missed his training in how to act superior.

His guards, however, missed nothing. They stood at the bar with their guns drawn, looking ready to detonate. The Aristo must have ordered them to stay put; otherwise they would have never let a Jagernaut talk to him alone.

Block, I thought. Their tension receded, but the psicon kept flashing in my mind, warning that my systems couldn't keep out the full onslaught of their emotions. It would require my brain to release so much of its neural blocker, it would interfere with my ability to think.

Jack's other patrons had either left the place or moved across the bar. Rex had returned, holding a massive knife he must have taken from the kitchen. Taas and Helda had drawn their knives, smaller ones like the blade in my boot. The four of us were facing five Traders armed with lasers, but we had a big advantage; the Aristo was within my reach. His perfect self would make a perfect hostage.

"Why do you want to meet me?" I asked him.

"It's your hair." He expression brightened. "I've never seen anything like it."

I stiffened. Tarque had told me the same thing. My hair was black and curly, a little more than shoulder length. About two thirds of the way down it shaded into a dark wine color and at the ends it turned gold. It had fascinated Tarque. Was this Aristo looking for providers? He was young, not much more than twenty, but that was more than enough. Aristos usually took their first providers when they reached puberty.

Except . . .something about him didn't fit. I couldn't figure what. The chiseled features of his face looked pure Highton. His accent fit, his stance fit, his voice fit. But something was wrong.

"What do you want with my hair?" I asked.

"It's pretty." He shook his head. "You're so beautiful. Why do you want to be a soldier?"

In my mind I saw that memory again, the one that had haunted me for ten years: Tarque raising his long finger to point at me. That one. I want that one. I had to struggle to keep my voice even. "And I suppose you would be happy to show me my other options in life, right?"

He smiled. "Perhaps for this one evening? This is Delos after all. Here we can, at least for one night, meet each other as friends."

Right. Aristos socialized only among their own caste. Period. Their only use for the rest of us was as slaves. Did he really think I was stupid enough to walk off into the night with him? I'd never see my freedom—or sanity—again.

"No thanks," I said. "I'm busy tonight."

He looked disappointed but unsurprised. "Perhaps someday." Then he bowed and returned to his group. As I watched, his guards closed around him and swept him out the door.

It wasn't until they were gone that his bow fully registered on me. Aristos only did that with each other, as a sign of respect. None I knew would be caught dead bowing to one of us.

Rex came over, holding his monster knife. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," I said.

"What did he want?"

I scratched my head. "He was trying to pick me up."

Rex's hand tightened on the handle of his knife, his knuckles whitening. "Did he threaten you?"

"No. Not at all. He sounded normal. Very polite."

Helda and Taas came up on my other side. "You think it was a trick?" Helda asked.

"I don't know." I exhaled. "But if I hadn't had experience with Traders, he might have convinced me to go with him."

"We should warn the Arcade police," Taas said. "Before he does get someone around here to go off with him."

Taas was right, of course. But somehow I didn't think the Aristo would talk to anyone else.

Something about him didn't fit, it just didn't fit at all.

II
Tams Station

The city of Athens bordered the Arcade. I had no idea why the Allieds called the place Athens; it was as ugly as its ancient namesake on Earth was reputed to be beautiful. They had laid it out in squares delineated by nervoplex streets and lit by boxy lampposts. As Rex and I walked along the darkening roads, hovercars hummed by, their cushions of air exciting the nervoplex into ripples that bounced back and forth between the curbs. It gave me a headache.

The police station was a one-story building chromed with the same blue and silver colors worn by the Arcade police. We entered a lobby with a counter on its far side. As we crossed the room, a holocam tracked our movements from its perch in a corner of the ceiling.

A woman with graying hair greeted us at the counter. "Boro na sas voetheso?" she said.

Translate, I thought.

Greek, my node responded. Translation: May I help you?

The woman looked from Rex to me, her gaze darting over our uniforms. She repeated her question, her voice higher this time. What did we want, coming in here dressed like thugs—

Block, I thought. The psicon flashed and I stopped feeling like a criminal. Translate 'We would like to make a report' into Greek. As my node provided the words, I spoke haltingly, copying the Greek as best as I could. It didn't sound much like the node's pronunciation, though.

"Ti?" the woman asked. My node translated it as, What?

I pushed my hand through my hair. "Skolian?"

She shook her head. "Okhi Skolian."

No Skolian, the node translated.

"English?" I asked.

"Okhi English," she said.

How do I say 'Interpreter?' in Greek? I thought.

Diermeneas, my node answered.

I regarded the woman. "Diermeneas? Skolian."

"Epanalabete?" she asked. The node gave that one as Say again?

I gave it another try. "Diermeneas."

"Ah." The lines in her forehead smoothed out, and she motioned for us to follow her. She took us to a small room with a table surrounded by nervoplex chairs. Three walls were blank, but the fourth had a large pane of opaque glass. I suspected the glass was transparent when viewed from the other side; the place looked like an interrogation room.

After the woman left, Rex scowled at the chairs.

I smiled. You don't like the decor?

He grimaced. It's hard enough muting people's reactions without having it multiplied by what we sit in.

I brushed my finger over the back of a chair. Although nervoplex could do no more than react to muscle tension, empaths tended to interact with it, stiffening when it tried to relax us and relaxing when it tensed up. It set up a feedback loop that intensified whatever we were feeling. So really it just multiplied our own emotions. But Jagernauts were like sponges; other people's feelings became ours. Even the most disciplined of us, soldiers who showed no response to most observers, experienced minute changes in posture and muscle tension when we picked up emotions.

The door opened and a young man entered. He walked over to Rex and smiled, extending his hand. "My pleasure at your company," he said in perfect Skolian. "I'm Tiller Smith."

Rex blinked at him, then looked at me.

I think you put your hand in his and move it up and down, I thought.

Rex grasped Tiller's hand and pumped it vigorously. "Gracias," he said, using one of the few Earth words he knew.

Tiller winced, and extricated his hand from Rex's clutches. "Mrs. Karpozilos said you wanted to report a crime."

Why is he talking to me? Rex thought. Can't he tell you outrank me?

Maybe he doesn't know our military protocol. Aloud, I said, "Not a crime. We're hoping to prevent one."

Tiller glanced at me, then at the arms of Rex's jacket, then at mine. Finally he said, "I'm sorry—I've never really worked as an interpreter. I'm just a handyman here. I—well, I'm not sure how to do this." He spread his hands. "I can't even read your identifications."

Identifications? I peered at my jacket. Its only markings were a line of silver studs and the gold band around each of my upper arms that denoted my rank. Rex's was identical except he had two narrower bands on each arm. Did Tiller mean our ranks?

"I'm Sauscony Valdoria, Primary." I motioned at Rex. "Rex Blackstone, Secondary."

Tiller gaped at me. "You're an Imperial Admiral?"

I didn't see why that was such a surprise. "Primary. It's not the same thing."

"Isn't Primary another word for Admiral?"

"The rank is similar," I said. "But it's not the same. Primaries are Jagernauts."

"Super-fighters." Excitement leapt in Tiller's voice. "Telepathic computers, yes? I studied your—ah!" He hit his head with his palm. "I'm sorry. You didn't come here to be grilled by me."

"That's all right," I said. It was rather nice to meet someone who didn't wish we would go away.

He motioned to the chairs. "Shall we sit?"

Rex and I looked at each other. Neither of us made any move to sit. After a moment Tiller said, "I have a better idea. Why don't you come to my office? I have some great armchairs there." He glanced at the nervoplex seats and added, "Mine have cloth upholstery."

Smart fellow, this Tiller. "Thanks," I said.

His "office" turned out to be a cubbyhole between a restroom and a closet. Shelves lined the walls, crammed with holobooks and old style texts with paper pages. A faint odor of oil hung in the air. Equipment lay scattered everywhere: optical tools, dismantled holoscreens, parts of mesh consoles, jacks for human/mesh interfaces, and pieces of soldering-lasers. The clutter covered every available surface and hung from anything that remotely resembled a hook. The promised armchairs were buried under boxes of hologram film.

"Here." Tiller cleared off three chairs, transferring the boxes to his already crowded desk.

I chose an armchair with a worn covering that crackled. Rex settled into a green armchair. When Tiller drew up his seat, we made a small circle. He pulled a rod out of his pocket and tapped it against his knee. With a hum, it unrolled into a flexible screen on his lap. Dark letters appeared, suspended above the screen, and a holocam icon glowed in one corner, which probably meant he was making a visual recording.

"Okay." Tiller glanced up at us. "Tell me what happened."

"A Trader Aristo is visiting the Arcade," I said.

Tiller's face paled. "And?"

I wondered at his reaction. "Do you know why we call the Eubians by the name Traders?"

He spoke with difficulty. "I know—knew—someone who was on a ship captured by a Eubian Huntercraft. His family has been trying to find him for six years. The authorities say he's probably been sold to an Aristo."

"I'm sorry." Their chances of rescuing his friend were nil. "We think that may be why this Aristo is here. To find providers."

As Tiller's hand tightened on the arm of his chair, my own knuckles started to ache. "You think he's planning to kidnap someone?"

Rex rubbed his hands, massaging the knuckles. "It's possible."

"Why would an Aristo come to Delos for that?" Tiller asked.

"Providers have to be empaths," Rex said. "And empaths are rare, particularly among the Traders. He might have thought he had a better chance of finding one here."

Tiller spoke carefully. "The official Allied position is that empath don't exist."

Rex stiffened. Being told you didn't exist wasn't the most endearing statement. He spoke coolly. "That's not our problem."

Tiller held up his hands. "I didn't say we all thought that. Just that the experts aren't officially convinced true empaths exist."

I wondered how an official conviction differed from an unofficial one. His reaction intrigued me. He wanted to know what we could tell him about empaths far more than he let on. Why?

"An entire range exists," I said. "From simple empaths all the way to those who can sometimes pick up the thoughts that go with the emotions."

A surge of excitement made my stomach feel like shimmerflies danced in it. In the same instant Tiller said, "You mean telepathy, yes? Are you—?" He stopped himself. "I don't mean to pry. I've just never met telepaths before. I mean, you have to be, right? If you're Jagernauts?"

I couldn't help but smile. I liked Tiller. Most people wanted to be as far from us as possible, fearing we would violate their privacy. I had heard fabulous talents attributed to Jagernauts, everything from altering coastlines to adjusting the future. In truth, the best we could do was catch unusually intense thoughts, and even that was difficult unless the sender was also an empath or telepath.

"A Jagernaut must be five or above on the scale," Rex said.

"Scale?" Tiller asked.

"The Kyle Empathic Reception and Expression Scale," I said. "It measures a psion's strength. Ninety-nine percent of all humans are between zero and two. The weakest empaths are three, or one in a thousand. What most people call telepaths are six. One in a million. Or above that."

Tiller looked from Rex to me. "You're both sixes?"

Neither Rex nor I answered. After a moment, Tiller said, "Is something wrong?"

"What would you do," I said, "if I asked you how many times you made love last night?"

He reddened, and suddenly I felt mortified, as if I had peeked into his bedroom. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't realize it was so private."

"It's all right," Rex said. "I rate as a ten."

What possessed him to reveal that? I knew the ratings for my squad: Taas was seven, Helda six. At ten, Rex was that one in ten-billion telepath. But knowing their ratings was part of my job as squad leader. I doubted Rex had told Taas, maybe not even Helda.

Tiller looked at me—and I caught it. Feedback. He was feeding my surprise back to me.

Are you getting it, too? Rex thought. I was trying to draw him out.

We could ask him, I thought.

Too personal.

I think he wants to know. To put it mildly. He was bursting with his curiosity. He seems more comfortable with you.

Rex turned to Tiller. "How long have you known you were an empath?"

I almost groaned. He could have tried a little more tact.

Tiller turned red. "I never claimed—"

"You're in a feedback loop with us," Rex said. "You're picking up our emotions and sending them back to us."

Tiller gaped at him. "You're kidding."

"Not at all," I said. "Didn't you know?"

"Of course not." He hesitated. "Well, I mean, I've always thought—but you don't say things like that. People laugh at you." A breathless feeling came over me, fear and hope together. At that exact moment Tiller said, "You really think I'm an empath?"

Rex smiled, the lines around his eyes crinkling. "Yes. You should get tested."

"I've thought of it. That's why I learned Skolian. But I can't afford it." He looked from me to Rex. "I'm probably fooling myself, anyway. I don't see any evidence I'm different."

"It's not something you see," Rex said. "It's in your brain."

"Something is wrong with my brain?"

"Not wrong," I said. Though I supposed that depended on your point of view. "It contains two extra organs."

Tiller laughed. "In my skull? There's no room."

"They're microscopic," I said. "The Kyle Afferent Body and the Kyle Efferent Body. Most people just say KAB and KEB, though."

"When you think, neurons fire in your brain," Rex said. "My KAB picks that up."

Tiller squinted at us. "How could your brain know that my, um, neurons fired?"

"The molecular configuration of your brain has a quantum probability distribution—" Rex stopped when Tiller winced. Then Rex said, "Imagine an invisible hill centered on your brain."

"Okay." Tiller looked relieved.

"That's the distribution," Rex said. "Its 'foothills' fan out in all directions. They get smaller so fast that they've dropped to almost nothing a few hundred meters away from you. When you think, it changes the shape of those hills. You and I are close enough to each other that the distributions of our brains is overlapping right now. So my KAB can pick up changes in your distribution."

Tiller blinked at him. "So why doesn't this overlap thing happen with everyone?"

"It does," Rex said. "But without a KAB, a person can't pick up anything. But I do. The more intense your feelings or thoughts, the more molecular sites they affect my KAB. The KAB sends messages to neural structures in my brain called paras. Only empaths have them. My paras interpret that input as your emotions."

"The KAB receives signals," I said. "The KEB sends them. It acts like an amplifier, increasing the range and intensity of the signal you send to other empaths."

Tiller laughed ruefully. "No wonder I'm so slow. If all that extra business is going on in my head, I must never have time for thinking."

Rex smiled. "Actually, you have more brain cells. In fact, it can make you smarter."

"Not me," Tiller said. "I'm not brilliant like my siblings."

"Don't underestimate yourself," Rex said. "The traits are hereditary."

"Shouldn't my parents be empaths, then? I don't think they are."

"The genes are recessive," I said. "Your parents could carry them unpaired, like brown-eyed parents with a blue-eyed child."

Tiller hesitated. "A lot more people have blue eyes than, well—are like me."

Rex and I exchanged a glance. We knew all too well the rarity of psions. I tried to make a joke out of it. "You could put us on an endangered species list." It didn't sound funny, though. It hit too close to the truth.

"If people know which genes do the trick," Tiller asked, "can't they engineer more of us?"

"It's been tried." My grandmother had been "born" that way. "But the Kyle genes are linked to lethal recessives. Even if an engineered fetus survives, its brain is often abnormal. The fetus also reacts strongly to its environment, so cloning is difficult." I smiled slightly. "The best method for making psions is the old-fashioned way, with a man and a woman."

"Ah." Tiller smiled slightly. Then his face turned thoughtful. "I had always thought empaths were a result of the Rhon Project."

"Not exactly," Rex said. "Doctor Rhon was trying to help empaths develop a high resistance to pain." Bitterly he added, "He created the Aristos instead."

Tiller sat up straighter. "The Skolian government created the Aristos?"

I spoke shortly. "No."

"Your government isn't called the Rhon?"

Soz? Rex thought. Do you want me to stop?

I tried to relax. No. Go ahead.

"We're governed by the Assembly," Rex said. "It's an elected council of leaders."

"Then what's Rhon?" Tiller asked.

"He was a geneticist," Rex said. "The word is also used for the descendents of a human dynasty that ruled the Ruby Empire five thousand years ago."

"Oh." Tiller looked embarrassed. "I'm afraid I don't know much Skolian history."

"It's your history too," I said. "We all come from the same place."

"I have to admit,' Tiller said, "I just never understood how that could be."

I spoke wryly. "Join the club." As in, the entire human race. "all we know, really, is that six thousand years ago, an alien race kidnapped humans from Earth, stranded them on some planet, and disappeared." My ancestors had never figured out the point of that bizarre exercise, seeing as their kidnappers never told them why.

The displaced humans had had nothing but the ruined starships left behind by their abductors. They eventually used the libraries in those vessels to develop star travel and establish the Ruby Empire, an interstellar civilization. The empire fell after only a few centuries, though, stranding its colonies. It took thousands of years for my ancestors to recover space flight, but they still managed it before Earth. In Earth's twenty-first century, when her people finally attained the stars, they got one hell of a jolt. We were already here, busily building empires. We and the Allieds had intermingled since then, until now, less than two centuries later, it was hard to believe we had been separated for millennia. But the differences were there, deep under the surface. It would be a long time before we trusted each other.

"Rhon worked with the descendants of the Ruby Dynasty, which had ruled the Ruby Empire." Rex said. "He was trying to bring back the Kyle traits that had made them empaths and telepaths. That's why people call members of the Ruby Dynasty 'the Rhon.' It refers to their Kyle rating. It's too high to quantify."

"I thought Rhon was their name," Tiller said.

"Their family name is Skolia." Rex spoke wryly. "That's why we're the Skolian Imperialate. They may only be titular rulers, but they're still our royal family."

Tiller rubbed his chin. "So Rhon selected for empathy and got Skolias, and he selected for pain resistance and got Aristos?"

"He didn't mean to create the Aristos," I said. "It's what you would call an unfortunate side-effect." Very unfortunate, as in one of the worst catastrophes in human history.

"I still don't get it," Tiller said. "What do the Traders want with empaths?"

I didn't want to answer. I didn't want to think about it. But he needed to know. "An Aristo's brain only picks up emotions caused by pain. To decrease their sensitivity to it, the brain sends the signals to its pleasure centers. It makes the Aristo feel good. More than good. It's ecstasy." I had to stop myself from gritting my teeth. "They're a bunch of sadists. They get off on torturing people."

Tiller's face paled. "But why empaths?"

I was having trouble breathing. A fan in the wall whirred, with a hiccup that grated on my nerves. "We send stronger signals. The stronger the empath, the—the more the Aristo—enjoys . . ." My fists clenched and my words balled into knots.

Tiller waited. But neither Rex nor I continued. Finally Tiller traced his finger through a winged icon above his screen. "I've sent a copy of your report to the Chief." He shifted in his seat. "But unless this man breaks a law, we can't do much."

"Just be careful where you go," I said. "Stay at home or here for the next few days."

"All right." He looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

After we left Tiller's office, we headed to the lobby. I stopped before we had gone far, though. "Rex, I'll meet you at the Inn."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just forgot to tell Tiller something."

He touched my cheek, his finger lingering. "Soz . . ."

His uncharacteristic touch startled me. "I'm all right."

"You're sure?"

"Sure. I'm great."

He brushed a curl of my hair out of my eyes. "I'll see you later, yes?"

Why was he looking at me with that strange, tender look? "Of course." It wasn't like I was going anywhere.

After we split up, I went back and found Tiller's door open. He was sitting on the edge of his desk reading a book.

"Tiller?" I said.

He looked up, his pleased surprise lightening my mood like a gust of cool air on a sweltering day. "Did you forget something?"

"No." I came over to him. "I thought you wanted me to come back."

He winced. "Am I that easy to read?"

I smiled. "Only to another empath."

"I was just thinking—" His voice gentled. "It took a lot for you to come here."

"All we did was talk."

"Something hurt you, and our talk stirred it up."

"I'm fine. Really."

"I wanted to say thanks, that's all." He pointed to the pen-sized computer on his armchair. "And for that. With a record of two high-ranking Imperial military officers saying I'm an empath, I might convince a grant committee at the university to sponsor my Kyle testing."

"Well. Good." I didn't know what else to say. I was used to people speeding in the other direction when I came around. Thanks wasn't a word I had much experience with.

"Here." Tiller handed me his book.

I held it awkwardly, wondering what do. The book was old style, bound in soft cloth the color of ivory, with parchment pages inside instead of a holoscreen. My translator gave the title as Verses on a Windowpane, written in English.

"It's beautiful," I said.

"Keep it. As a thank you gift."

A gift? This Allied citizen who didn't know me was giving me a gift simply for talking to him. For some reason my eyes were wet. Block, I thought. But the psicon didn't flash.

* * *

Night had folded its cooling darkness around the city by the time I headed back to the hotel. I took speedwalks that bordered the streets, avoiding the nervoplex. I didn't want to feel what it would tell me about myself. I already knew. I had lied to Rex and Tiller. I wasn't fine. My mind had started to replay that scene, the one I wanted to forget, the one that had lived in my nightmares for so many years.

Ten years ago, I had been walking along a dirt path on Tams, for all appearances a normal citizen going about my business. A flycar had hummed by me, then stopped and backed up. In slow motion, I saw it happen again and again; Kryx Tarque, the Aristo governor, leaning out to look at me, lifting his long finger while his lips formed words: That one. I want that one.

That one. Me. Sauscony Valdoria.

I had run. But even a Jagernaut couldn't outrun six armed soldiers plus an Aristo in a flycar. When they caught me, I faced a decision that haunted my memories: should I fight? I wanted to hurt them the way I knew Tarque planned to hurt me. But it would give away my military training. They would know they had someone far more interesting than a Tams citizen. They would investigate until they discovered my identity, not only my military rank but also the civilian title I carried. And then my life would become a nightmare.

Unless I waited until the odds were better, I would have no chance of escaping. So I fought like a frightened civilian instead of a Jagernaut. Tarque found it amusing. He took me to his estate in the hills and had me as his prisoner for three weeks. Late into one of those long Tams nights I finally managed to work free of the restraints he had used to tie my wrists to the bed.

Then I strangled him.

Rex had been trying for that entire three weeks to infiltrate the estate. He found me after I fled the house, when I was running across a field, my mind screaming from aftershocks of the pain. He caught me, held me tight, so tight, as if he feared I would vanish. His voice shook while he told me, again and again, that I would be all right.

But I wasn't all right. Tarque had been the antithesis of an empath, a being with a mental cavity where his capacity for compassion should have been. Sadist and empath, parasite and host: his mind had been the negative of mine. When he concentrated on me, I fell into his emptiness, filling it for him, connecting us in a bond he craved even more than orgasm. He spoke in soft, loving murmurs while I screamed and screamed and screamed . . .

Rex and I left Tams that night. I spent only a few days in the hospital; Tarque hadn't wanted his provider scarred, so my physical wounds were minor. But my doctors told me to see a heartbender. When I didn't go, my CO ordered it. So I went and told the heartbender what she wanted to hear; I am, after all, an empath. In her report she said I would be all right, that I just needed time to heal.

As for my true feelings about what happened—if they had haunted me for ten years, that was my business and mine alone.

III
Psibernaut

The thick carpet in the hallway outside Rex's room muffled my footfalls like a wine-red cloud. Real wood paneled the walls, glossy and red-hued. Next to Rex's door, an ivory oval showed a palm-sized relief of a man with the tail of a fish. He was rising up in a spume of water, glistening drops of water spraying about his head and a trident held high in his hand. When I touched the pager, the door chimed like bells heard through sea waves lapping on a shore.

Rex's voice came over a hidden speaker. "Come."

I touched the door and it swung open, revealing a room paneled in that same sinfully luxuriant wood. A carpet covered the floor like burgundy velvet. The only light came from a lamp with a rose-glass shade. Rex sat in the middle of the bed, cross-legged on its wine-red cover, his head bent over his work. He was cleaning his Jumbler. Sections of the gun lay around him, black metal gleaming in the dusky light.

"Planning to shoot someone?" I asked, closing the door.

He glanced up as I crossed the room. "You're the one who insists we clean them so often."

I smiled amiably. "Clean and jumbled." It was how I felt after my shower. I sat on the bed next to him. "I set up a guest account on the Inn's system. We can upload our data on the Traders as soon as Taas and Helda get back from dinner."

Rex nodded, bent over his weapon. He was polishing the ejector that fit into the accelerator dees inside the main body of the gun.

"I expected you to be out with that girl from the bar," I said. "She seemed interested."

He finished the ejector and went to work on the hand grip. "She's young."

"I thought you liked your women that way."

"I guess I'm tired."

I wondered at his mood. He had seemed subdued since we left the bar. It was odd; I would have thought seeing an Aristo would have wound him up. Something else was bothering him. I nudged his mind but he blocked me, keeping his mental doors closed.

"Rex." I laid my hand on the grip of his gun, stopping his movements. "What's wrong?"

He looked up at me for a moment. And then he said, "I'm going to retire."

"What?"

"I've been thinking about it for a while." He exhaled. "Soz, I'll be forty-seven soon. All the other officers from my class at DMA have retired." Neither of us said what he left out: or else died.

"You can't retire." I tried not to remember he had only been a year behind me at the Dieshan Military Academy. "I need you."

He pushed his hand through his graying hair. "I'm not like you. I can't put off getting old. Forty-seven isn't just my age on file; it's how I feel." He shook his head. "I've had enough. I want to go home, have a family, dig in the garden."

"You can have a family now." I was talking too fast. "You don't have to retire. And you can dig holes in the ground wherever you want. I'll get you a special hole digging commission." He wasn't old. He wasn't any older than me. Yes, my genetics gave me a potential lifespan twice the human average. But nowadays most humans lived into their second century. Rex had plenty of time.

He smiled, but it was like this strange mood he had tonight, gentle instead of wild. Then he really went over the cliff. He slid his hand around my neck, drew my head to his, and kissed me.

"Hey." My protest came out muffled again his lips. "What are you doing?"

He pulled back enough too look at me. "Kissing you."

"What for?"

"Well, let me see. Maybe it's a new way of checking the weather."

"Very funny. Why are you acting so strange?"

He spoke quietly. "Soz, I want you to marry me."

He had gone crazy. "You drank too much at the bar."

"I didn't drink anything. We never got our ale."

"I can't marry you. It's against regulations." Good reasons existed for the ban on fraternization. It compromised the ability of the people involved to carry out their duties. It happened anyway, despite regulations, but it often ended in disaster. If I married Rex, no way could I send him into battle. I would spend the whole time obsessing on the fact that he might get hurt. Or worse.

Except he wanted to retire.

"I don't want to retire," I said. I wasn't sure if that were true, but for the moment it would do.

"I'm not asking you to," Rex said.

So. He wasn't giving me an out. I tried to untangle my thoughts. Could I see Rex as a husband? He had been my closest friend for fifteen years, my confidant, someone I relied on. He was like a brother. In fact, I was closer to him than to any in my seemingly endless supply of brothers.

"I don't get it," I said. "What happened to these women you have pining for you all over the galaxy?"

"You're evading my question."

"What do you want to marry me for?"

He looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or growl. "Because I have a fetish for women with the romantic instincts of a cork."

I couldn't help but smile. "Then I guess we're compatible."

"Sauscony, I'm serious about this."

If he was calling me Sauscony, he had to be serious. No one called me Sauscony but my parents. "I would hate it if you left me."

His voice softened. "Why would I do that?"

Could I say it? Sixteen years had passed, enough to dull the pain. "My first husband did."

"I didn't know you had been married more than once."

"Twice." My second husband had died a few years ago, not long after we had married. I couldn't think about that now. Maybe never.

"Why did he leave?" Rex asked.

"It's a boring story. You don't want to hear it."

Rex stroked a curl away from my face. "Tell me."

It was a moment before I answered. "He hated what I did for a living. He was afraid I would die. He asked me to quit."

"I thought you couldn't quit."

I stiffened. "I'm not indentured. I can retire if I want."

"But if you do, don't you lose your position in the Imperator's line of succession?"

I wanted to say so what? I had never asked to be born into the remnant of a dynasty that had ruled a long dead empire. The Ruby Dynasty. The people Tiller had called Rhon, with no idea he was talking to one of them. My brother, Kurj, held the title of Imperator. He commanded Imperial Space Command—and they followed him with such intense loyalty that some observers considered him a de facto military dictator.

"Well, technically," I told him, "you could say Kurj has no heirs. He's my mother's only child by her first husband and he has no children of his own." No legitimate children, anyway.

"I thought he chose you to follow him."

I shifted my weight. "I have seven full brothers and two sisters. He could have chosen choose any of us. Hell, he could have made my mother his heir."

"Your mother?" Rex's grin turned wicked. "No one would fight, then. They'd all be in love, too busy trying to look at her to think about going off to war."

I scowled at him. "Only a man would say that."

He laughed. "I don't know about that. Helda might."

In truth, I couldn't imagine my mother as a war leader. She was a superb diplomat and a lovely ballet dancer, but the military was a foreign language to her.

Before I married anyone, I had to sort out how I felt about my heritage. I brought out my thoughts like a game player setting up a board with three pieces: the Imperator, the Assembly Key, and the Web Key. Or, more popularly, the Fist, Mind, and Heart of Skolia. As Imperator, my half-brother Kurj commanded the military. My aunt, the Assembly Key, served as the liaison from the Assembly to the Rhon. My father was the Key to the Web.

My mother had married my father because he was a Rhon psion. Kurj hated him, this man who had become his stepfather. If I married Rex, what would it be like for him? I wasn't sure that was a fair comparison, though. Rex could handle Imperial intrigues. When my parents met, my father had been living on a primitive world. His people descended from a colony established in the Ruby Empire and isolated for thousands of years after its fall. Marriage to my mother had yanked him from that simple, rural culture into the morass of Skolian politics. In Kurj's unforgiving view of the universe, any children produced by my father were flawed. But unless Kurj ever found a Rhon woman to marry, we were the only suitable candidates for his heir.

"Kurj needs an heir who understands Imperial Space Command," I said.

"You."

"He chose three of us. Me, and the two of my brothers who became Jagernauts."

"Why three? Only one of you can be Imperator."

I gritted my teeth. "That's right."

Rex stared at me. "The one who survives."

My shoulders bunched under my jacket. "Kurj knows I can't stay on active duty forever. I've proven myself for a quarter of a century. But sixteen years ago it was different."

"That was when your husband wanted you to quit?"

I nodded. "It would have meant abdicating any claim I had to become Imperator."

Rex made an incredulous noise. "What the hell did your husband expect when he married an Imperial heir?"

I stared down at my hands. Somehow I said the words. "I got pregnant. I didn't know. I was injured in battle and lost the child." I made myself look at Rex. "Jato—my husband—it tore him apart. He stayed with me until I recovered. Then he left."

"Soz," Rex murmured. He tried to put his arms around me, but I held back. I'd always wondered if Kurj knew how much Jato and I had wanted a child. That was another item in my mental file of things not to think about.

"You ought to know I wouldn't leave you," Rex said. "I don't expect you to retire."

I turned the idea over in my mind like a child with a newly minted coin. Kurj couldn't keep me in combat forever. With my rank and experience it made more sense to have me behind a desk, planning strategy. If he killed all his heirs, he wasn't likely to get more of us soon. None of my other siblings were remotely qualified.

Rex was a good man; I'd known that since I first met him. He was a potent telepath, probably the strongest I would ever find. I couldn't spend my life looking for that one in a trillion person whose mind matched my own. The only time I had ever shared my mind with another Rhon psion had been an accident. Once, when my kid brother Kelric had been seven and I sixteen, we went hiking. A storm caught us, pale blue sleet raging from the sky. We took shelter in a spine-cave of the Backbone Mountains. As Kelric and I huddled together for warmth, our minds merged. It lasted only a few hours, the most fulfilling link I had ever made with another human being. It never happened again; that bond was too intimate to share with a brother. But neither of us forgot. After that day, I knew I would search everywhere for a Rhon mate.

Except there weren't any. Despite all the attempts to engineer a Rhon psion—before the ethics boards mercifully put a stop to them—my grandmother had been the only success. In the generations since her birth, on a thousand plus worlds and a billion different peoples, we knew of only two people who had been born naturally, and survived, with the full complement of Rhon genes: my father and my grandfather.

"Soz?" Rex touched my cheek. "Where are you?"

I looked at him, really looked in a way I had never done before. This man had been at my side for fifteen years, gone into combat with me, laughed with me, mourned with me. We had traveled across Skolia, both on duty and off, learning to know each other with an intimacy that had nothing to do with sex. Could I lie with him as wife? The answer was easy, now that I considered it. The only surprise was that it had taken me so long to realize it.

I smiled. "Who else would want me inflicted on him for the rest of his life?"

"What were you planning on inflicting?"

"My sense of humor."

Rex grimaced. "I'll try to endure it."

"Yes."

"Yes?" He tilted his head. "Yes, what?"

"Let's do it."

"Do what?"

"You know. The thing."

"What thing?"

"You know."

He put his hands on either side of my head and mussed up my hair. "Say it."

"You know what I mean."

"Go on." He was laughing.

I scowled at him. "Keep this up and I'll change my mind."

"I don't know, Soz. If you can't say it, how can I believe you'll do it?"

"All right. I'll marry you. Satisfied?"

He stopped grinning and spoke in that strange gentle voice he had used earlier tonight. "Yes."

So. It didn't feel so odd after all. I slid my hand across the black sweater he wore under his jacket. He pulled me down with him on the bed, lying on his back as he wrapped his arms around me.

"I can send my Notification of Intent tonight over the Kyle-Mesh," he said. "I'll give my resignation when we get back to HQ."

Notification of Intent. It was so strange to hear it from Rex. His timing made sense, though. After our rest here, we would return to Headquarters for our new orders. Rex had waited until we were between missions. I could love him now. I never had to send him into battle again.

A beep came from the console. "Damn," Rex muttered. He stretched his arm across the bed and touched a panel on the console. "What?"

Helda's voice came out of the speaker. "Heya, Rex. You know where is Soz?"

"I'm right here," I said. "We'll meet you at my room."

Both Helda and Taas were outside my door when we arrived. Helda gave me an odd look. I couldn't tell what she picked up, but she must have sensed something. It had all changed. I would never see Rex in the same way.

The pager by my door showed a dark-haired woman on the rocky shore of an island. She stood with a quiver of arrows strapped on her back and a curving bow in her hand. I touched the waves on the beach, and a laser played over my finger. It only took an instant to produce an interference pattern from my print and correlate it with the one made by the Inn's computer. Then my door swung open.

After the sensual ambience in Rex's room, mine felt too cool. The walls were blue-green ceramic with frothy accents. A mesh console was built into a roll-top desk by the bed, with labels on in six languages, including Skolian.

I sat at the console and touched the panel marked with the picture of a doorway. "Access my guest account. Then link me into Kyle space."

"Hello, Primary Valdoria." The console spoke in Skolian. "Homer here. Welcome to the Aegean Inn. I am pleased to access your account." After a pause it said, "I'm setting up the Kyle link. Please excuse the delay."

"That's a polite console," Helda said.

I smiled. Allied mesh nodes tended to be friendlier than those on Skolia's massive network. We had chosen this hotel because it equipped its consoles with psiphons, which few Allied establishments bothered to do. I lifted a small panel and took the psiphon out of its cradle. It was a simple model, no more than a transparent prong connected to the console by a thread. When I clicked the prong into the socket on the inside of my wrist, my arm tingled. I knew, logically, that those tingles weren't real, but every time I plugged in a psiphon I felt them.

The words Attempting connection appeared on a small screen in the desk.

"Looks like it's working," Taas said.

"So far." That Homer responded to the psiphon with written instead of verbal replies made me doubt the Allieds had spent much time setting up the system.

I rubbed my hand up and down my arm, a habit I had picked up years ago. Many Jagernauts did it, as if we could feel the biomech in our bodies. It had four parts: fiberoptic threads; sockets in my wrists, spine, neck and ankles; the spinal node; and bio-electrodes. Homer sent signals to the psiphon, which passed them to a thread in my wrist. From there, they traveled along threads to my brain or node. Bio-electrodes in my brain cells translated that input into thought by firing my neurons. If an electrode received a 1, it gave the neuron a brief, tiny shock; if it received a 0, it left the neuron alone. Similarly, they translated my thoughts into binary output. Bioshells coated the electrodes, and neurotrophic chemicals kept them from damaging my brain. My fiberoptic threads sent messages to Homer via the psiphon prong. Given the extensive operations required to implant a biomech web, the years it took to learn its use, and the chance the host body might reject it—not to mention the numerous security clearances—few people had them.

Another message appeared on the screen: Psiphon activated.

"Slow," Helda muttered.

"Allied equipment," Taas said, as if that explained it.

Test, I thought.

The word test appeared under Homer's last message.

Parameters? Homer printed. His responses glowed red on the screen; mine were blue. His message didn't echo in my mind at all.

Verify spinal node link, I thought.

The words verify sibling appeared on the screen.

Rex laughed. "Whose sibling are you verifying?"

"It's not translating right." Run diagnostic on psiphon, I thought.

The words Run diagonal deepening glowed on the screen.

Please restate command, Homer printed.

I tried verbal. "Run a diagnostic on the psiphon."

"Running," Homer said. Then: "I found no problems."

Huh. If the psiphon wasn't the problem, it had to be my biomech web or this console, both of which were more serious. I pulled out the prong and peered at it. A thin layer of dust covered the head. After rolling it between my fingers, cleaning off the dust, I plugged it back in.

Verify spinal node connection, I thought.

Verify spinal node connection appeared on the screen.

Verified, Homer printed. If you provide your account information, I will try to enter you into the Kyle-Mesh.

That isn't necessary. I can do it. I pressed a panel with the Greek letter Ψ.

Denied glowed on the screen.

"Denied?" Taas asked. "What does that mean?"

Homer, I thought. Why can't I enter the psiber gateway?

I can't translate "gateway" in this context, Homer printed.

I want to use the psiber functions of the psiphon. The Kyle functions.

They aren't enabled.

Helda snorted. "Why have psiphons if they don't set them up right?"

"Maybe they don't know how," I said. Homer, can you enable the Kyle functions?

I don't know. What do they do?

The psiphon should boost my mind into psiberspace.

The only translation I have for psiberspace is "hypothetical computer network,"

"Pah," Helda muttered.

Kyle space, then.

Kyle space and psiberspace are the same thing.

Yes. Either way, it exists.

Where? I don't know what it is.

It's outside spacetime. Information there is transmitted in wavepackets of thought rather than by photons or matter particles.

If it has no spatial location, how can I find it?

It exists everywhere, I thought. The other nodes can receive our input immediately no matter where they're located.

This would require instantaneous transmission across interstellar distances.

That's right.

That violates the laws of spacetime.

I scowled at the friendly but uncooperative console. Kyle space isn't in spacetime.

I cannot access something outside of space and time.

I tried to think of an explanation it would understand. In normal space, if I had two particles and I measured the quantum properties of one, I immediately knew those of the second regardless of its location, even it was across the galaxy. In Kyle space, the "measured" property was thought; as fast as a telepath could form a thought, every user in the star-spanning Kyle-Mesh could receive it.

Neither the Allieds nor the Traders had a Kyle-Mesh. It needed a Rhon telepath to power it, and no member of my family would consent to do that for them. Aristos had no Kyle abilities. Their providers did, at least enough to use if not power a Mesh, but the Traders refused to acknowledge providers could do anything but provide. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if they or the Allieds had tried to create a Mesh and failed. Despite the Allieds' skepticism about psibernetics, they had to realize the Kyle-Mesh allowed my people to survive against the Traders. The Aristo inventories of military personnel and equipment dwarfed ours, but we could outmaneuver, outcommunicate, and outcalculate them. They lumbered; we sailed.

That was why my family, the Ruby Dynasty, held power even in this age of elected leaders. No machine could link into Kyle space. Only a telop—a telepathic operator—could connect to the Mesh. And only a Rhon psion could create or power that vast network. The entire Mesh, with its billions of nodes, needed a Rhon psion to keep it operating, for no other psion was strong enough to survive its force. Without my family, the Mesh wouldn't exist, and without it, Skolia would fall to the Traders.

Homer, try this, I thought. Hail node PS42.mil on the Skolian network. When you get the "Restricted" message, transfer control of this console back to me. Maybe I could find a backdoor our intelligence people had snuck into the Allied systems.

Hailing, Homer thought. Then: Transferring link.

A new thought came into my mind, crisp and cold: Provide identification.

Access my spinal node, I thought. Mod 16, path 0001HA9RS.

Accessed. Clearance verified.

My awareness of the room faded. I floated in an opalescent sea, my mind centered at one node of a glimmering mesh that spread in all directions. Flashes of light sparked as other minds navigated its endless extent. I was a quantum wavepacket, a round hill surrounded by circular ripples that extended into the infinite "lake" of Kyle space, becoming smaller and smaller the farther they were from the peak that defined the center of my identity.

A spark resolved into another wavepacket. It rippled through me without a trace of interference.

Security check, I thought.

All lines secured, PS42 thought. You are undetectable to users with clearance lower than Blue Forty-seven: Level B.

Transfer me to IMIN.

The hill that was me sank into the mesh. I rose up in another section of the grid that glinted like metal. Sparks jumped into focus and then disappeared.

The grid rose in front of me into a cobalt mountain of polished metal. YOU HAVE REACHED A5A.MIL. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS OF THIS NODE IS PUNISHABLE BY EXECUTION.

Well, that was lovely. My clearance is in M-16.

CLEARANCE VERIFIED. STATE PURPOSE.

To use Comtrace.

The cobalt node shifted me to a white grid in a sea of painfully bright light. Comtrace's response came into my mind like ice. ATTENDING.

Comtrace, access my optic nerve, I thought. Alter my perception to highlight my physical surroundings.

DONE.

My awareness of Kyle space faded into a translucent image that overlaid my view of the room. I saw Rex leaning over to peer at the console. Helda stood next to him, waiting with her massive arms crossed, and Taas was sitting on the bed glancing through the book Tiller had given me. None of my interactions with the Mesh showed on the screen: the printing had stopped with my last response to Homer.

Activate audio, I thought.

"Audio activated," Comtrace said. Although it used Homer's speakers, the icy cadence of its speech was a jarring contrast to Homer's friendly tones.

Taas looked up from the book. "Set up?"

"Done," I said. "I'm giving it my file on the Aristo." Then I thought, Comtrace, upload the file M-86, D-4427, F-1 from my spinal node.

UPLOADED.

I'm going to detach the psiphon. Keep your end of the link open.

Understood.

I unplugged the prong and handed it to Rex. "Your turn."

It only took him a few seconds to upload his memory of the Aristo into Comtrace. Helda went next and then Taas. When they finished, I linked back in. "Comtrace, produce a visual image of the subject based on our memories of him."

"Working," Comtrace said. A holo formed above a horizontal screen on the desk showing the Aristo we had seen in the bar. He just stood there, about one handspan tall.

"He wasn't that harsh," Rex said.

The console remained quiet, the holo unchanged.

Comtrace, I thought. Respond to voice input from the three units listed in my security file.

Blackstone, Rex: verifying. Bjorstad, Heldagaard: verifying. Moroto, Taas-ko-mar: verifying.

I waited restlessly for it to finish verifying that it could respond to them. Their names was like a microcosm of Skolia. Blackstone was the modern translation of an ancient name from the planet Raylicon. Like Rex, it was pure Raylican, dark and powerful. Helda's was the Skolianized version of an Earth name; her parents were an Allied couple who had immigrated to one of our colonies. Taas's name was a mix: some of his family had come from Skolian colonies and some from a place on Earth called Japan. My name—Valdoria Skolia—was a different sort of mix. Although my maternal grandmother had been born in a genetics lab, her lineage went back to the Ruby Dynasty. My father and maternal grandfather came from rediscovered Skolian colonies.

UNITS VERIFIED, Comtrace thought. RESPONDING TO BLACKSTONE.

The Aristo's features softened, making him look sixteen years old.

"Too young," Taas said. Comtrace aged the man about three years.

"Still too young," Helda said. Comtrace added another three years.

"His hair was a little longer," Helda said. Comtrace added a few inches.

They studied the image. Finally Rex said, "Looks about right." Taas and Helda nodded.

"Comtrace, run an ID check on this image," I said. "Compare it to every file available on the current Highton Aristo caste."

"Working." After a pause Comtrace said, "No record exists that matches this image with sufficient accuracy to provide verifiable identification."

I frowned. "You checked every living Highton?"

"Yes."

"Maybe we don't have files on them all," Taas said.

"We thought we did," I said. "There are only a few hundred Hightons."

"We maybe guessed the wrong caste," Helda said.

It might be possible. Although Hightons were uppermost among the Aristos, two other castes existed, enough to bring their number into several thousand. "Comtrace, what do you estimate is the probability this man is a Highton?"

"Checking."

I glanced at Rex. "Something about that Aristo looks familiar. I can't place it."

Rex nodded. "I thought so too."

When I glanced at Helda and Taas, they both shook their heads. "He has the look of a Highton," Helda said. "That's all I see."

"Run complete," Comtrace said. "Based on your reports of his appearance, mannerisms, speech and retinue, I estimate a ninety-eight percent probability that the man is Highton. Based on your conversation with him, Primary Valdoria, I estimate eight percent."

Rex whistled. "That's bizarre."

"That 8 percent depends on my memory of him," I said. "Maybe it was skewed."

"Given your experiences," Rex said, "I would hardly think you'd see him as less threatening."

Comtrace spoke. "My analysis includes correlation of your reports with previous reports the four of you have made on Aristos, the consistency of those reports with other peoples' reports on the same Aristos, all reports made on Aristos by other officers, the consistency of those reports, and the consistency of your reports on other matters. Based on those calculations, I estimate ninety-one percent accuracy to your observations."

I smiled. "You've been busy."

"Can you figure out why the Aristo is here?" Taas asked.

"I estimate a fifty percent probability he wants an unusual provider," Comtrace said. "Thirty percent he is curious about Delos, nine percent he is spying on the Allieds, and six percent that his ship needed repairs."

"You think he was trying to trick me into going with him?" I asked.

"Not likely. Your military status was obvious. To believe you would be deceived by such a trick would require a naiveté unlikely for an Aristo."

"What do you think is the chance he told the truth, that he just wanted a date with me?"

"Essentially zero." Comtrace paused. "If he is searching for providers, however, I calculate a ninety-three percent probability he was practicing on you."

It sounded plausible. Except I didn't believe it. I had no justification for my doubt, but it persisted just the same.

Rex leaned over the console. "Why such a low probability for his being a spy?"

"It is considered beneath a Highton to engage in covert operations," Comtrace said. "Unless those operations relate directly to the acquisition of power. However, given the close proximity of Delos to Tams Station and the current crisis on Tams, it is conceivable that a Highton might come here to discover if the Allieds have any connection to the situation."

So. It was ironic that Tams, a small mining station, had come to prominence. Six hundred million people lived there, descendents of an ancient Raylican colony that had doggedly struggled to keep their independence from all of us, Skolian, Trader, and Allied alike. Fifteen years ago the Traders had claimed the planet. They managed to manipulate the political situation so any response on our part would put us in violation of our tenuous treaties with them. At least, any overt response.

"Comtrace, what is your latest information on Tams?" I asked.

"IMIN reports indicate the rebels have captured the planet's ground based defenses."

It didn't surprise me. Although we couldn't offer aid openly, we had other means. It wasn't luck that the civilian leaders of the Tams rebellion had captured and held the sophisticated Eubian military installations on their planet.

"How have the Aristos responded?" I asked.

"Their saboteurs destroyed the Red Hills factories," Comtrace said. "Also the warehouses in the Sandrise, Docker, and Metalworks districts. They gutted the stardrives and Evolving Intelligence pilots of all space worthy ships in both Tams starports."

Rex swore under his breath. "That's too damn effective."

"Why?" Taas asked. "What are the Red Hills factories?"

"They were the only factories on the planet equipped to build replacement parts for starship drives," I said. "The warehouses are where completed parts were stored."

"If the rebels control the planetary defenses," Helda said, "they can bring in ships with new EI's and engine parts."

"Not if the Traders control the orbital defenses," Rex said. "They and the rebels may be at a standoff."

"Comtrace," I said, "what is the official Trader position on the situation?"

"That the uprising no longer exists," Comtrace said.

Helda spoke dryly. "Why do I have no surprise at this?"

"A recording of Ur Qox's last speech is available," Comtrace said. "Shall I display?"

I had no desire to see the Trader Emperor give a speech. His name was actually U'jjr Qox, but we pronounced it Ur Cox. The apostrophe indicated he was a Highton. The highest Highton. Regardless of how I felt about the him, though, we needed to know what he had to say.

"Yes," I said. "Display the recording."

The mystery Aristo disappeared, replaced by a lean man at a crystal podium. He was in his late forties, with shimmering black hair and red eyes. His Highton accent chilled. Tarque had also been Highton, with that same unremitting arrogance in his voice, that same look of it in his too-perfect face.

Qox spent most of the speech lauding the Trader army. He painted the rebels as less than human and the Trader soldiers as heroes. The speech didn't contain a whit of useful information. He went on and on, invoking the glory of his empire and the Aristos and himself and his father's purportedly esteemed name.

"At least his father's dead," Rex muttered.

At least. The previous Emperor had been even worse. J'briol Qox, the man we called Jaibriol, had conquered nearly a thousand worlds. And he had hated my family. Gods, he hated us. It infuriated him that we, the ultimate providers, not only lived free from his power but had the audacity to build a civilization rivaling his own.

In English, Jaibriol translated into Gabriel. The Allieds, however, used our spelling and the soft "J." I once asked a receptionist in an Earth embassy why they avoided their own translation. She told me the name Gabriel came from one of their holy books, that he was an archangel whose name meant "God is my strength." She thought Jaibriol Qox should have been called Lucifer instead, after the fallen angel who had sunk from heaven to hell. It made a lot of sense to me.

"At least this Qox has a redeeming quality," Taas said.

Helda snorted. "His only redeeming quality would be to fill a coffin."

"He has no heir," Taas said. "Twenty-five years of marriage and no children."

"You would think he would divorce the Empress for a more fertile wife," Rex said.

"Why?" Taas said. "All the Hightons need are her eggs and his sperm to make a baby."

"They are not allowed divorce anyway," Helda said.

"Actually, he could divorce her if she's refusing him an heir," I said. "Deliberate infertility is grounds for dissolving the royal marriage. The only grounds, in fact, except for adultery."

"You think he actually loves her?" Taas asked.

"Am I wearing a ballet tutu?" Helda asked.

Rex smirked at her. "I'd like to see that. A pink tutu."

Helda crossed her arms, her bulky muscles rippling under her regulation pullover. "Pah."

I smiled at the image in my mind of Helda in pink. "He needs a Highton as his heir." Hightons were fanatical about keeping their bloodlines "unpolluted." No child could be recognized as part of their caste unless numerous genetic tests verified his parentage. Of course the Qox line had to be the purest of all. If Ur Qox didn't soon produce an acceptable heir, he risked losing his claim to the throne.

"At least our people don't have to worry about that," Taas said.

"We don't?" I asked.

"I mean, the Assembly is elected," he said. "It doesn't depend on heritage."

"Not the Assembly, no," I said. "The Kyle-Mesh does." At his puzzled look, I added, "Imperial heirs have to be Rhon psions." I couldn't help but notice Rex as I spoke. Why was he so pale, as if I had punched him in the gut? Surely he knew our children would never be in the line of succession.

Rex spoke carefully. "I had never realized bloodline was so important to the Imperial family."

I wanted to kick myself. I had become too comfortable with him, assuming he knew me better than he had reason to. Why should he be aware of something so personal? My family guarded our privacy, all the more so given how much our lives fascinated the rest of the universe.

Block Moroto and Bjorstad, I thought. As my awareness of Helda and Taas receded, I tried to reach Rex. He blocked me.

"It isn't that way," I said. "We need to widen our gene pool. Too many dangerous recessives are tied to the Rhon genes. But if we cut them out, it removes what makes us Rhon."

"What I don't get," Taas said, "is why—"

Helda interrupted. "I just remember, Taas. We didn't close our accounts after we check mesh-mail in my room."

Taas glanced at her. "Yes, we did."

"No, I think we forget. We better make sure."

He frowned at her. But then he said, "Oh, all right."

After they left the room, I smiled wanly at Rex. "Subtlety was never her strong point."

"We've worked in a Kyle link for years," he said. "It's natural she would pick up on tension."

"Rex, I'm sorry." I unplugged the psiphon and stood up next to him.

"I presumed." His voice was flat. "I aspired to a station above mine."

"I can't think of any man more worthy to be my consort."

His emotions broke through his barriers: anger and shame mixed together. "Yet our children aren't worthy of the Skolia name?"

"Of course they are! But the Imperial family has to be Rhon." The room felt so quiet, muted by the thick walls and carpet. "It's the only way we can keep the Kyle-Mesh alive. If my family doesn't do it, who will? The Allieds? Ur Qox would eat them for breakfast. If we ever lose the Mesh, the Aristos will douse us like a bell over a candle."

"No, our children won't be able to power the Mesh," Rex said. "What the flaming hell does that have to do with their ability to lead?"

"They'll still be heirs to the Ruby Throne. It's only the Triad they can't join. Without full Rhon access to the Mesh, that access would kill them." I spoke more softly. "Our children won't be Rhon, but they will be empaths, powerful ones. That's all the more reason to keep the Rhon strong. If Skolia falls to the Traders, then you, me, any children we have—we'll all become providers."

A muscle under his eye twitched. "We won't let it happen."

"No. We won't."

He was still blocking me, though not as much as before. I didn't push. I wanted things to be right with him, for it to work out where my other two tries at marriage had failed. "Rex. I'm sorry."

"I should go sleep," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

And then he left.

IV
Lucifer's Legacy

The spectacular sunset had cooled into darkness, leaving the street below my window lit only by holosigns that glowed in the alley. I couldn't sleep. The Delos day had no resonance with my internal clock. I wondered if Rex was in bed. What he would say tomorrow, in the early hours of darkness when humans here started their day? I lay naked under the frothy blue blankets, thinking about it. Then I rolled over. Again. And again. I wound the blanket so tight around my legs, I could barely move. I jerked off the covers and turned again, facing the console, the air cool on my skin.

A button the size of a coin had turned blue on the console. I pushed it. "Yes?"

"Soz." Rex's voice rose out of the speaker.

My shoulders relaxed. "Heya."

"Were you sleeping?"

"No. Just lying here."

"Do you remember Jo Santis? That officer you bunked with in retraining a few years ago?"

"Vaguely." Whatever had prompted that question?

"She told me something about you. I've been thinking about it."

I didn't like the sound of that. I couldn't imagine what in a spacer's helmet I had done that some woman I barely knew would tell Rex, and that he would find thought provoking after all these years. Warily, I asked, "What did she say?"

"That you sleep naked." I could almost see his wicked grin. "That true?"

Ah. I stretched my arms. "Maybe." I almost added: Why don't you come find out? But the words stayed in my throat. Instead, I said, "I used to when I was a girl, when it was hot."

"Soz . . ."

"Yes?"

"I can deal with the succession thing. It just caught me by surprise."

"I should have said something before. I was stupid."

"You're never stupid." He laughed. "Dense as hell sometimes. But never stupid."

"Hey." I smiled. "I'm still your CO, you know."

"I'd rather a wife."

"Me too." After he retired, he would have to get my family's approval before we could marry. But they would give it. Even I could see how well suited he and I were.

"You want a wife too?" Rex asked.

I laughed. "No. You. Husband."

His voice softened. "See you tomorrow, Soz."

"Night."

After we cut the connection, I still couldn't sleep. Now it was because I kept remembering how tightly his pants fit. I was never going to get any rest. Finally I sat up and turned on the lamp over the bed. Soft light diffused through its blue glass.

The book Tiller had given me lay on the nightstand. I opened it to the title page. Verses on a Windowpane. A pen-and-ink drawing below the title showed a window frosted with ice. An indistinct form stood on the other side of the pane, barely discernible through the icy coating. The figure was drawing in the frost, just the tips of fingers visible against the window.

As I flipped through the book, a ticket stub from the Arcade fell out. It marked a page with a poem and another drawing of the frosted window. Whoever had been on the other side of the glass was gone. The pane had shattered, and its broken glass jutted up in shards with ice glistening on their edges. The poem was in English:

A frame of stone.
Silvered glass
frosted with icy tears.

My fist closes
on the mirror;
flesh traps ice.
Brittle snaps
of breaking tears.
I see you now
standing behind me;
always watching,
always waiting,
never satisfied.

I sheath my heart,
its bare softness
guarded by ice.

"For flaming sake." I closed the book. "What kind of poem is that?" It reminded me of Kurj for some reason. I dropped Verses on a Windowpane on the console and lay in bed. What was Rex doing? Sleeping? Did he sleep with clothes on? Images from the poem mixed in my mind with far more appealing images of Rex minus his uniform.

"Stop it," I muttered. I would never get any sleep this way.

Finally I got up and dressed. Then I went for a walk. It was either that or take a cold shower.

The crowds on the Arcade had thinned to almost nothing. I cut through a corner of Athens, then jogged across the stubbly fields around the Delos starport. When I reached a terminal, I went in on the level with the arrival and departure gates. The place had that late night feel unique to starports, with their cool lights that never went off and their chrome and glass halls. I paced its artificially bright corridors like a leather-clad thug in black boots.

Eventually I came to one of the ubiquitous security checkpoints, an arch about two meters tall. It could make multiple recordings of whoever went under it, everything from magnetic resonance scans to an analysis of skeletal structure. It could even analyze behavior and judge if it was suspicious. Two guards staffed the arch, a man and a woman checking a line of bored people. I got into the line for no other reason than to have somewhere to go. Anything was better than returning to the Inn, where I could find nothing to do but read weird poems about sheathing hearts.

As the line moved forward, people queued up behind me, most looking half asleep. When my turn came, I stalked through the arch and sent the console into shock. Lights flashed and alarms shrilled loud enough to wake every living sole in the entire area.

The guards stepped in front of me. The woman looked at the bands on my jacket, then spoke in English. "I'm sorry, Primary. But we can't let you through until we find out the problem."

The problem indeed. What, besides the fact that I was a living weapon.

We compromised; they would let me through if I handed over every metal object on my person. So I pulled the switchblade out of my boot. As I straightened up, both guards dropped their hands to their burn-lasers. I just handed my knife to the woman. She blinked, then took the blade. Next I gave her the thorn-tube hidden in my jacket sleeve and the dart thrower tucked under my belt. She turned the weapons over in her hands as if she didn't know what to do with them.

"Is that all?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

The man indicated the metal studs on my jacket. "Those will set off the alarms."

Oh, what the hell. I took off the jacket and handed it to him. I could pick it up on the way out. Underneath I was wearing a Regulation Class Six Garment, upper body issue, type three; in other words, a black pullover. But when the man glanced at my pants, which also had metal studs, I said, "I not give you those."

He turned bright red. "I didn't mean—of course not."

I tapped my torso, then my head, then my thighs. "Got biomech in here."

He blew out a gust of air. "Well, give it another try and see what happens."

I went around and walked under the arch again. The alarms were just as loud as the first time. The guards were very polite while they scanned me for more weapons. They were very polite when they asked me to go through three more times and submit to three more scans so they could verify it was the tech on my uniform and in my body that set off the alarms. By then, I thoroughly I wished I had found somewhere else to walk. Meanwhile the line of people behind me grew longer and longer.

Finally the woman said, "She's clean."

"All right." The man exhaled. "You can go on through, Primary."

Someone in the line clapped. I laughed—and half the waiting people jumped like scared rabbits. Huh. They must have seen too many Jagernaut-runs-amok movies.

Once I made it through the checkpoint, though, I had no idea where to go. So I just walked. And walked. Eventually I stopped near a deserted gate. I stood in front of its door, staring at my reflection in the windowpane that made up its upper half.

"Want to retire?" I asked the woman staring back at me. Maybe it was time to rest, to give myself the peace I needed to clean out that file of suppressed memories.

Small footsteps sounded nearby. A child spoke in English. "Do you have a motorcycle?"

I looked down to see a girl of about five gazing up at me with big eyes. I smiled and tried out my English. "What is mutter-psi call?"

She smiled back. "It's like a big bicycle."

"Oh." I didn't know what a bi-psi call was either. "Have you mutter-psi call?"

She shook her head. "Just a trike. A red one. The wheel had a hole in it."

Ah. She meant cycles. Of course. "I am sorrow about the hole."

"It's okay." she said. "My Daddy fixed it. The tire was all empty and he made it full."

Something about what she said was important, but I couldn't figure it out. Then I noticed a man hurrying up the hall. He spoke quickly to the girl. "Kimberly, don't bother the soldier."

I smiled. "Is okay. I enjoy."

He stared at me, and I caught a flash of his thoughts, surprise that I responded like a normal human being.

Kimberly waved. "Bye."

"Bye," I said.

As the girl walked away with her father, it hit me why her words were important. It's okay. It was empty and he made it full. That was what was wrong with the Aristo. He wasn't empty. He didn't need anyone to make him full. That cavity, that horrible emptiness wasn't there.

After my experience with Tarque I knew how an Aristo's mind felt. It was hollow. But the Aristo in the bar hadn't been hollow. He didn't have something wrong, he had something right.

"He's not an Aristo," I told the deserted hallway. "I don't care how he looks, talks, moves. He's not an Aristo."

That made the whole incident even stranger. His guards, the people in the bar, even my squad mistook him for a Highton. Hell, Comtrace did. Only a trained telepath who had also been a provider would know he was a fake.

How had he done it? As far as I knew, no exceptions existed to their caste system. Aristo babies had their DNA verified to prove it came from Aristo parents. His heredity must have been thoroughly scrutinized before the Hightons acknowledged him as one of their own. The testers were supposedly above reproach, though I had my doubts any system existed that couldn't be corrupted. But it stretched credibility that even a Highton could buy off all the necessary verification units. Aristos all felt the same: they didn't want their bloodlines "polluted" by non-Aristos. More than any other human race, they acted collectively rather than as individuals.

Something strange was going on, and where Traders were involved I didn't like strange goings-on. It was time to find out why they had come to Delos.

I went back for my jacket and weapons. After I left the port, I returned to the Inn, but only to get my Jumbler. The gun fit in a holster on my hip, with a strap fastened around my thigh for support. Jumblers had to be big; each contained a particle accelerator. Despite its size, it was relatively light, molded from composite materials. It carried abitons for fuel, antiparticles of the biton, a subelectronic building block. Bitons, what we affectionately called "wimpons," were the most weakly interacting particles found that coupled to the electromagnetic field. Their rate of pair-production was miniscule, and like quarks they were rarely found in isolation. Electrons consisted of bitons—hundreds of thousands of bitons.

When I fired the Jumbler, abitons whipped around the accelerator and ejected in a beam. Abitons annihilated bitons, creating photons, which meant a Jumbler turned electrons into light. If even a fraction of an electron annihilated, the remains decayed into other particles. A Jumbler beam could travel short distances in air reasonably well, but solids were another story. Coulomb repulsion and the instability of the mutilated electrons made the material blow itself apart. The gun got its name from the way solids looked after we shot them.

I had no intention of shooting the Aristo; regardless of what people seemed to think, Jagernauts weren't violent by nature. Besides, killing an Aristo, even a fake one, would achieve nothing except destroy the shaky truce negotiations we periodically tried to conduct with the Traders. What I wanted was information, and the Jumbler could make an excellent tool to persuade him that he should give it to me. Of course after I left, he could call the police. But Aristos hated to look weak in front of non-Aristos. As long as I caused no damage to his exalted person, I was betting the potential for humiliation would stop him from calling in the authorities.

I headed into the hills north of the Arcade. The "houses" up there were mansions separated by parks that covered more area than the spaceport. An Aristo was far more likely to have rented one of those than a room in a hotel suite. The problem was to find which one.

Lamps lit the estates, shedding pearly light across the grounds. The houses were shaped like ships and built from green stone with foamy accents that swirled through the rock. Vines draped them like delicate fronds of pale green sealace. The translucent blue-violet stone used for the roofs evoked the sky and clouds. The "masts" of the ships were gold spires, each adorned with disks in hues of platinum, silver, green, white, the palest rose, and ocean shades of blue, all chiming together in the stray breezes. Even the nervoplex streets were beautiful: silver and glittering when still, as now when no traffic skimmed over them; shimmering and rippling when I walked on them. I still didn't like the stuff. It made me feel vulnerable. But I had to admit it looked good.

I followed a path winding through the low hills of a park. I was already tired. Although the Delos atmosphere had a high oxygen concentration, it wasn't enough to compensate for the thinner atmosphere. I felt as if I had been jogging on a high mountain. I stopped in a field of downy clover, my chest heaving as I gulped in air. Flowers nestled in the clover—and they sang.

I knelt down to peer at the blossoms. Each was a cluster of purple tubes that whistled as the wind blew across them, the notes varying with the shape and size of the tubes. It blended into a soft music that floated through the night. It reminded me of tunes my brother Kelric used to play on a flute-reed he had cherished as a small boy. Actually, "small" was the wrong word; Kelric had grown into a giant who could hold the entire flute in the palm of his hand. But I remembered him as seven years old, from that day we had taken refuge in the spine-cave.

I bit my lip. I wasn't going to find the Aristo by getting maudlin about my childhood. I headed down the path again, and as I walked, I schooled my mind into a meditative state. The scenery made it easy to relax, easy to let my sphere of thoughts expand. Without a psiphon to amplify my mind I couldn't do much, but if a strong empath were close enough by, I might detect glimmers . . .

Pain!

His face hung above me, his eyes like rusty flakes from an incinerator. The iron rod descended, its end glowing red from heat—I looked away—

My body jerked as the iron seared my skin, and the stench of its burning mixed with the stink of scorched nervoplex. A boy screamed, his ragged voice begging for mercy—my voice. I struggled to shut out the pain, to imagine myself home on Tams, a young man in the Ivory Garden, relaxing, happy—NO! My arms jerked above my head, trying to come down and push away the iron. But the harder I fought, the tighter the nervoplex bonds pulled my wrists. He leaned over me, and I fell into the hole of his mind, fell, fell—

Something slammed my body. Gasping in a breath, I realized I had fallen. I was lying on my stomach, the dull point of a rock pressing into my cheek. My arm lay next to my face, the gold band on my jacket sleeve reflecting the faint light from a distant lamp.

I sat up, willing my body to stop shaking. The path. I was Soz, on a path in the park. Soz. Not that youth there, bound and screaming. But where was there? And whose Aristo face had that been above him? I kept seeing Tarque, but it couldn't be him.

Recall, I thought.

Memory file degraded, my node thought.

It didn't surprise me. The human brain couldn't make perfect records of memories even with processors as advanced as my node, which had been upgraded a few months ago. But a reasonably good record had to remain for an event as intense as the one I had just experienced.

Play what you have, I thought. But put a filter on it.

Replay activated.

I saw the Aristo leaning over me again and felt the iron branding my skin. Mercifully, the filter gave the memory a diffuse quality, muting its intensity.

Freeze, I thought.

The image froze on the Aristo's face. He wasn't Tarque, but neither was he the false Highton. It was his guard, the tall one whose Aristo blood had shown in his eyes and hair. I guessed he was at least half Aristo, probably more, certainly enough to make him want a provider.

Release, I thought. The memory faded.

I had found the Highton, or at least his guard's provider. I closed my eyes, trying to reach the youth. He was my clue to the Aristo. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't force myself back to his mind.

I climbed to my feet and started down the path. Gradually, as I walked, my pulse slowed and my breathing calmed. I called up a menu that said my adrenalin levels had returned to normal. Taking a breath, I reached out again with my mind. This time I searched more carefully—there! I jerked back from provider, but not so completely that I lost the link, just enough so I didn't submerge into his experience. Gritting my teeth, I probed at the rusty-eyed guard. Normally I couldn't have reached him from so far away, but his link to the provider gave me a bridge. I hung on to the edges of his mind like a swimmer hanging onto a strut, fighting a whirlpool. A scream from the provider cut through my consciousness, and the guard groaned like a lover in the grip of an orgasm.

I was dimly aware of the park, of a tree where I had halted, leaning against its trunk. How could I stop the guard? I couldn't change his damn brain structure. But I had to do something.

Boring. I hurled the thought with as much strength as I could marshal. Boring! This provider has become immensely, excruciatingly BORING.

Lethargy settled over the guard, dulling his interest and also my link with him. I was losing the image. The echoes of pain from the provider stopped, and his relief flared so intensely that I saw the guard, too, and even the room around him. Another provider was there, a girl lying bound to a divan on her back with her arms stretched tight over her head.

As the first provider's responses faded into exhaustion, my link with him weakened. Where? I thought in the Eubian language. Where are you?

He was passing out; soon I wouldn't sense him at all. The guard had left the room—wait, the second provider, the girl—he must have freed her before he left. She was running to the boy, and the intensity of her frantic concern yanked me back into the link.

I jumped to her mind. Where are you? WHERE?

She untied the boy, crying, cradling him in her arms. As he collapsed against her, my link weakened. Before it faded altogether I caught up the faint image of a mansion shaped like a huge galleon. I had no idea if either provider tried to send the image; it felt more like an overflow from the girl's agitated thoughts. Whatever the reason, I had the hint I needed.

Or maybe not. After searching for an hour, I still hadn't found the galleon. It was time to go back to the hotel. Disheartened, I walked around a graceful fountain that spouted fragrances instead of water, my footsteps muted on a lawn of rose-bells. Beyond the fountain, a road glistened in silvery light from the street lamps. I looked across it—straight at the galleon mansion.

The house "floated" in its gardens, surrounded by bushes sculpted like swells of water, with white flowers that resembled sea foam. The masts glowed with streaks of phosphorescence, and their furled sails looked, at this distance, like sheets of gold. The disks on them chimed together, their pitches blending into a song that evoked water and wind.

Faint light rippled around the house like an aurora borealis. I knew those colors; I often saw them around the Triad—my aunt, my brother Kurj, and my father. By order of the Assembly, when a Triad member went in public, those rainbows also went. They were the only outward sign of a cyberlock, a brain implant. I had one, though I rarely used it. When activated, the lock produced a field tuned to its owner's brain waves. Low-keyed fields sounded an alarm when penetrated, mid-keyed fields repulsed intruders, and high-keyed fields killed them.

Birds were flying through the rainbows, so the field had to be low-keyed right now, a warning system to catch intruders. But it would permeate everything around the house, leaving no hole to sneak through. Was this lock tuned to the Highton? That would mean he had undergone surgery to have it implanted, a grueling process few people cared to undertake. That so young an Aristo should be so thoroughly protected was as disturbing as everything else about him.

Toggle combat mode, I thought.

Toggled.

I studied the mansion, trying to decide how I could best utilize my augmentations. In combat mode my body relied on bioengineered hydraulics that ran along my skeleton, with living motors that linked to my fiberoptic web. The only limit on my reaction speed was the time it took the hydraulics to move my limbs. And that was fast, far faster than any muscle could contract. I often fought by reflex, automatically accessing the extensive libraries of fighting maneuvers in my node. And I used combat mode sparingly; despite reinforcements to my bones and joints, the system strained my skeleton. Fast reactions did me no good here in the park, though. I had to get inside the mansion without being detected, which at the moment looked impossible.

An idea came to me. I smiled. No, I couldn't do that. I really couldn't.

"Well, hell, why not?" I said.

I crossed the road, and its nervoplex shifted under my feet. On the other side I walked through the cyberlock rainbows and up to the front door. Then I knocked.

The door opened immediately, revealing two guards armed with laser carbines, power packs hung on their belts. Their confusion hit me like a blast of air; had his lordship actually been lunatic enough to invite me here? Had I been lunatic enough to accept?

"My greetings," I said—and whipped up my leg, kicking one carbine out of its owner's hands while I sent the other man's gun flying with a sweep of my arm.

Neither guard had a chance to summon help before I knocked them out. But as I ran into the mansion, another eight guards appeared, running down the stairs in the entrance foyer and coming through archways on my right and left. What the hell? Although Hightons always traveled with bodyguards, the usual complement was four. I had expected only the five I had seen at the bar.

As I focused on the guards, my mind went on boost, changing my perceptions so that everyone seemed to move in slow motion. The guards reacted as if they were underwater, barely changing position while I leveled my Jumbler at them.

Weapons link established, my node thought. A grid of cross-hairs appeared over my view of the foyer while stats flashed in a corner of my mental display:

Fuel: abiton
rest energy: 1.9 eV
charge: 5.95x10-25 C
magnet: 0.0001 T
max radius: 0.05 M

I swept the Jumbler beam across the ground in front of the guards. Only orange sparkles showed as it cut through the air, but when it touched the floor, that parquetry exploded. Debris flew everywhere and rained down into the trough I was gouging. Dust swirled around us. I doubted the owners of the mansion would rent to the Aristo again. His guests were too ill-mannered.

The guards skidded to a stop at the trough, their arms rising in slow motion to protect their heads from flying debris. It wouldn't delay them for long, and I couldn't knock out this many even with my enhanced reflexes. Either I was going to have to take the irreversibly drastic step of shooting them or else find another way to reach the Highton.

I ran back outside into the garden. A laser shot came so close to my ear that strands of my hair sizzled. Someone cursed and shouted in Eubian about wanting me able to talk, not crisped to cinders.

I sprinted with accelerated speed toward a tower at the south edge of the mansion. It had to be the security center; Traders rarely varied in their procedures. They didn't comprehend innovation, opting instead for sheer strength. Unfortunately for us, sheer strength went a long way no matter how much imagination its producers lacked.

I reached the tower in seconds and annihilated its lock. Another guard was inside, his carbine already up and aimed. Even before my mind registered his presence, my leg was kicking into the air. My boot heel hit the carbine and it flew out of his hands, its shot going wide and burning into the wall instead of me.

The guard hit my Jumbler so fast, the gun spun out of my hand in a blur. He also had enhanced speed; I barely managed to block his blows when he came at me. I slid the thorn-tube out from my sleeve and fired its microthin sliver of metal. He jerked up his arm, deflecting it with the wrist guard he wore. That gained me the second I needed; while he was stopping the drug-filled needle, I got him with a dart. It hit his neck and he spasmed in mid-punch, his fist flailing, the tendons in his neck outlined like cables under his skin. He collapsed to the floor, breathing but unconscious.

A quick glance at his console told me he had been monitoring the estate defenses. I deactivated the cyberlock first. Then I used his system to access an emergency node of the Kyle-Mesh, one ridiculously easy to reach—for those who knew how to look. The instant I activated the account, it released a virus that jumped into the Highton's system. Less than a minute had passed since I walked up to the mansion.

Bells clamored outside. I grabbed my Jumbler and ran out of the tower—into chaos. Lights blazed, alarms cried for attention, flood lamps swung wildly across the gardens. The virus was setting off every warning system on the estate. In all that madness, they would never find the one alarm they needed, the one that registered me.

I fired the Jumbler across the street. Over here the glare of flood lamps hid the sparkles the beam made as it annihilated air molecules, but across the road, a street lamp disappeared in an orange flash. I hit the tree by the fragrance fountain, too, and it's branches crashed to the ground in a confusion of exploding wood and flying leaves. Shoving the Jumbler back into its holster, I ran toward the mansion. If this supposed Highton followed the usual Aristo pattern, he would be staying on the second story in the room hardest to reach from either the ground or air.

The most isolated window on the second floor had no entrance below it. I climbed up using a nervoplex trellis that vibrated under my weight, trying to throw me off. Had my reflexes been even a fraction slower, it would have succeeded. But I made it to the balcony and clambered over the railing, then stepped silently onto its polished floor. This bizarrely untutored Highton had left the curtains open on the doors that fronted the balcony. I could see him standing in the middle of his bedroom, gaping at the madly flashing console on his wall.

I annihilated the locks on the doors. Then I shoved them open and walked inside. "My greetings," I said in Highton.

He spun around. "How did you get in here?"

I tilted my head at a wardrobe by the wall. "I'm going to hide behind that. In a moment your guards are going to burst in and tell you an intruder is on the estate. You say you saw me run into the park, and you want them to catch me."

He watched me with astonishment. "I will say no such thing."

"Yes, you will." I closed the curtains on the balcony and backed up into the space between the wardrobe and wall, aiming my gun at his head. "Otherwise, I'll annihilate you into oblivion."

He didn't argue. It was a good thing, because my Jumbler was empty. I couldn't annihilate a speck of dust. Even with only wimpons for fuel, a gun could only hold so much antimatter.

A knock sounded outside.

The Highton turned with a startled jerk. "Come."

From my hiding place I could see only the Aristo. I heard the door open.

"We apologize for disturbing you, sir," a voice said.

The Aristo gave a perfect Highton scowl and waved his hand at the blaring console. "This is disturbing me far more. What is the problem? Who was that woman I saw outside? She looked like an Imperial Jagernaut."

"She is," the guard said. "The Primary from the bar. She damaged the foyer and ran out again."

"Why?" The Aristo sounded genuinely curious.

A second voice spoke. "We don't know, sir. We'll question her as soon as we catch her." His anticipation made my stomach lurch. I "recognized" the feel of his mind even though I had never met him. He was the guard with the two providers.

"I saw her run into the park across the street," the Aristo said.

"We'll search it thoroughly," the first guard told him.

"Good. Now leave me to my privacy. And fix those alarms."

"We haven't been able to isolate the virus causing the trouble," the other guard said. "We may have to turn off the security system and restart it."

The Aristo raised his eyebrows. "With all the commotion, she could have climbed into this room without being detected."

The first guard spoke in a reassuring voice. "The trellis would throw her off, sir. And she was only on the grounds for a moment. She didn't have time to get close to you."

The Aristo spoke dryly. "I'm glad you have such confidence. Now go find her."

"Yes, sir." The guards must have bowed, because their clothes crackled with that irritating noise Trader uniforms made when someone bent at the waist. The door whispered shut and the pound of boots receded through the house.

The Aristo came over to me. "What do you want?"

I edged out, keeping my empty gun trained on him, and went to his console. Then I turned down the audio. Alarms continued to blare in the rest of the mansion but at least it was quieter in here.

"Have a seat," I said. "We're going to talk."

He stayed put. "I have nothing to say to you."

"You didn't feel that way in the bar."

Unexpectedly, he smiled. "No, I didn't."

A law should have existed against an Aristo having such a beautiful smile. No, he couldn't be an Aristo. Not with a smile like that. "I don't believe you're a Highton," I said.

"Why?"

His surprise sounded genuine. If he was a fake, either he didn't know it or else he was an astoundingly good actor. But I couldn't be sure. At close range, I could pick up an Aristo's emotions; their lack of empathy had no effect on how an empath perceived them. But I caught zilch from this one. Nothing. He was a blank wall.

I moved to the balcony doors and nudged open the curtains. A man was patrolling the garden below. "Your guards are good."

"Apparently not good enough."

"None of this makes sense." I let the curtain close. "You have eleven guards, at least one with a biomech web in his body." I thought of the man with the providers. It wasn't easy even for an Aristo to acquire psions, let alone a guard. "Another one of them is in favor with a powerful Highton, one with far more rank than you could have at your age. And few people, especially at your age, want or need to undergo the invasive operation to implant a cyberlock in your brain. Since your guards hold its key instead of you, they must take their orders from someone else."

He stared at me. "How did you know all of that?"

I didn't. Most had been conjecture. But he had just verified it. "I'm good at what I do."

"Yes. You are."

Huh. No Aristo would concede that someone like me, who to them was no more than goods for sale, had competency at anything besides serving Aristos. They knew what we were capable of, but they never acknowledged it. Yes, this man had the mannerisms, the carriage, the accent of a Highton. But not the scorn. A true Aristo would have made no secret of his intent to punish my actions. I would have felt his contempt. But I felt nothing with this one. He looked annoyed and intrigued, but I felt none of it. Nothing. It was almost worse than the cavity.

Then it hit me. He had blocks in his mind. These weren't the instinctive psychological walls anyone could raise, empath or not. Elaborate mental barriers protected this man. He had been trained to stop his brain from transmitting to other empaths. I knew the great investment of time and effort it took to learn those barricading techniques. It had been part of my Jagernaut training. It was different from the mental doors I closed to let other empaths know my feelings were private. These were fortified protections that could be broken only by the force of a stronger mind.

But only psions built such barriers. Only psions. Normal people had neither the need nor the ability to do it. In fact, even with biomech enhancements, most Jagernauts couldn't erect barriers as strong as I detected in this man. He was blocking even me. That meant he had to be a potent telepath. But no Aristo could be a telepath. It just wasn't in their precious gene pool.

"Why do you look at me this way?" the Aristo asked.

"What way?" I asked, stalling for time while I thought.

"As if I am a laboratory specimen."

"I'm trying to figure out why a provider is traveling as a Highton."

His anger sparked. "You come up here, throwing insults and waving guns, demeaning my bloodlines. Well, I am not impressed. Go ahead, shoot. This is what Jagernauts do, isn't it? Kill without compunction."

I didn't need telepathy to see his anger was genuine. He believed he was a Highton. "We never kill without compunction. How could we? We're empaths. We feel what our targets feel."

"This thing you call empathy—it weakens the mind." His voice quieted. "It is a frailty. Those with weak minds must work that much harder to overcome their failings."

Where had all that come from? "Did your parents tell you that when they taught you to hide your telepathic abilities?"

He paled, and I was sure I had hit the truth. He was a telepath, which meant neither of his parents was Aristo. Someone had taken great pains to conceal that fact. Why? Yes, many Hightons had children with their providers, and they often elevated those offspring to high levels within their slave hierarchies. But to pass off such a child as a Highton—it would be a phenomenal "corruption" of their incessantly glorified bloodlines.

"How long did you think you could hide it?" I asked.

He stared at me. "What are you going to do?"

I couldn't believe it. He was afraid of me. I had felt many emotions from Hightons: lust, anger, obsession, disgust. But never fear. As far as they were concerned I was nothing but a provider, and they refused to acknowledge a provider could have the power needed to inspire their fear. Yet I felt his as clear and sharp as broken glass.

I felt his mind.

Sweat beaded on my temple. A moment ago his barriers had been impenetrable. Now they were dissolving. He was a mental fortress, one that should have taken a tortuous battle of wills to break, yet now I felt him. He had to be voluntarily dropping his walls; I had done nothing. But I sensed neither the intent from him to do so nor the realization it was happening.

He watched me with a healthy, sensual desire that caught me unprepared. Blood rushed to my face and to far more private places. Block! The synapse psicon flashed in my mind, and kept flashing, telling me the block wasn't working. Either his reactions were too intense to shut out or else I was feeling my own as well. What was going on? It was wrong, all wrong. No, it wasn't wrong, it was right, and that was what was wrong.

I took a breath. Stay cool. Find out who he is. But how? I had a good starting point; if someone wanted him to pass as a Highton, they would have given him a Highton name.

"What surprises me," I said, "is that your parents gave you a name you obviously had no claim to."

The comment didn't provoke his anger, as I had hoped. He just shrugged. "I have far more right to it than the hundred or so others who have it."

Hundred. Given that only a few thousand Aristos existed, his name had to be a popular one. What were well known Aristo names? That was easy. Kryx, as in Kryx Tarque. I would never forget it. Vitar was another, Jaibriol, and . . .

Jaibriol. Jaibriol. Now I knew why Rex and I thought this man looked familiar, but neither Helda nor Taas recognized him. This false Aristo, this dove hiding in a night-wolf's body, was a living reminder of a dead Highton, a man who had died when Helda was a small girl and before Taas was born. Comtrace hadn't reported it because we had asked for a living Highton. This man resembled the late Emperor Jaibriol Qox, the father of the present Emperor.

A dramatic difference existed, however, between this man and holos I had seen of Jaibriol Qox. Although the previous Emperor had been handsome in his youth, his face had aged into harsh lines that showed his true nature. His son, the current Emperor, was a leaner, quieter ruler, softer-spoken—and just as vicious. The years had stamped that cruelty into his features, just as they had stamped it into his father's face. The man in front of me now showed no mark of that brutal nature.

The thought budding in my mind was absurd. It had to be wrong. But I had to test it. "How are you ever going to rule, Jaibriol? Your people will never accept a telepath as their Emperor."

He flushed. "Nothing is wrong with my mind. My people will accept me."

No. NO. It was a lie. It had to be. But his mind was opening up to me, leaving no room for misinterpretation. We had been wrong, all of us.

Emperor Ur Qox had an heir.

Somehow I spoke calmly. "You're descended from a provider. It's the only way you could be a psion. You have to get the genes from both parents." Both. Both. I stared at him. Now that I was looking for it, I couldn't mistake his Qox lineage. Not only did he bring to mind the late Jaibriol Qox, but I saw his resemblance to the present Emperor as well. "That means your father—the Emperor—is at most only half Highton. You can't be more than one quarter."

"Stop!" Jaibriol clenched his fist. "Stop your filthy insults."

His mental blocks were dissolving like salt in water. His mind was incredible. Beautiful. Sensual. I wanted him, just as an Earth salmon ready to spawn felt driven to swim upstream, against all obstacles, to reach home and reproduce. It made me want to strike out at him, furious that he—the Highton Heir—could so move me.

"They'll lust after your pain." I was losing my battle to stay cool. "All of them, your ministers, peers, women, guards, generals. Your life will be hell."

"You're insane."

"You don't know. You've had barriers protecting you. But you can't do it forever. If you slip once, just once, they'll know. You'll find out the truth about your precious Hightons. About your father. The man is a monster."

He pointed at the Jumbler I held. "This is all you understand. You see everything as war and hate. My father is a great man, far greater than you could ever comprehend."

"Where have you been for the last twenty years? In a cocoon?" I wanted to hit him. "Hightons torture people. Your father probably did it to your mother while he was siring you."

His face went white. "You are sick. Sick."

"You think I'm lying?" I waved my gun at him. "Fine. Come into my mind, phony Highton. You want to know what providing is like? Come and look. If you have the courage for it."

He watched me like a man balanced on a cliff staring at an abyss. And then he fell.

I had meant only to make him see what happened on Tams, to make that memory hurt him the way it hurt me. But I couldn't pull out of our link. His mind was too strong, more so even than I had expected given the warning of his immense barriers. We dropped together, melding as we plunged, a joining I had known only once before with a seven year old boy. Only this time it was with an adult, with an intensity heightened by anger and sexual desire, and it hit me like a tidal wave.

Jaibriol Qox was Rhon.

I could smell him, a musky, masculine scent that muddied my thoughts. Pheromones, Rhon pheromones. My whole body reacted. He picked up my arousal through our mental link and fed it back to me, exciting me even more. It multiplied Jaibriol's reaction as well, locking us into a double feedback loop that fast became overwhelming in its intensity. Had our natures been incompatible, it would have been revolting. But he fit. He was an aphrodisiac, firm and masculine, warm, inviting . . .

I fell into his memories like a diver plummeting into the ocean. His thoughts curled around me as if I were the only solidity in the sea of loneliness where he had lived for so long. He had spent the entire twenty-two years of his life, until a few weeks ago, living alone . . .only the visits of his tutors broke his solitude . . .his father rarely came to see him—

The demands of his life leave him no time, Jaibriol thought. He has more than me to consider. He is Emperor of Eube.

I recognized what he couldn't see: to his father, he was the ultimate provider. Somewhere within himself Qox had found the decency to leave the boy alone, avoiding him rather than risk giving in to the drive to torture his own son.

Too late I realized that as soon as I formed those thoughts, Jaibriol knew them. His mouth opened, then shut again. How can you believe such a thing? he thought.

Jaibriol—I'm sorry. I had to pull out of this link. I couldn't let this happen. I couldn't react with such sympathy to the Highton Heir.

Then I saw his mother, the Empress . . .tall, regal in a black and gold dress. Gold glistened on her wrists and throat, diamonds sparkled on her ears. Her hair fell to her waist like black silk. Her eyes were rubies, red and clear. Her face, so lovely, so regal—so icy, as hard and as cold as diamond. Why did she hate me? What horrible thing had I done, that my mother despised my every word, every move, every breath?

I watched his face, wanting to touch his cheek, his lips. Jaibriol, can't you see? You don't have even a remote resemblance to the Empress. She can't be your mother, not if you're Rhon and she's Highton.

Stop! He took hold of my lower arms, gripping them hard. I am not a provider.

Despite his denial, he had to suspect the truth. How long had it taken his grandfather to find a provider who carried the full set of Rhon genes? Years? Decades? He must have used that provider to sire a son who was half Qox and half Rhon. That ensured his genes remained in the Qox bloodline and required the least deviation from Highton behavior. That he even managed to break those ingrained patterns of conduct enough to father a son who was half Highton astounded me. The son he created—Jaibriol's father—must have completed the process. How? Engineered a son from his own genes? Or did he find a second provider to carry his Rhon heir?

The Emperor must have falsified the bloodline. He had means available to no other Highton. I also had no doubt he murdered all of those who made the verifications, executing the death sentence himself, in secret, leaving no witnesses to the truth of his son's heritage.

No. Jaibriol's thoughts shimmered like tears on a mirror. You're wrong. Wrong!

Jaibriol—I'm sorry. I tried to pull back from him. But it was impossible—so lonely—his life had been so lonely. The only constant in it was his father.

He is a great man, Jaibriol thought. I will never be worthy of his name.

Don't worship him. It will only hurt you.

I don't worship him. I love him.

He left you with no one.

He brought tutors. Jaibriol formed an image in his mind, an elderly man with grey hair and large eyes. I loved Marlin. He taught me to sing. His voice was magnificent. On my sixth birthday he gave me a hunter-pup. And he encouraged my hobbies.

Hobbies?

Jaibriol showed me his library on the estate where he lived. He let me see him studying, singing, writing, training, building, researching. His "hobbies." He had nothing else to do. He spoke fourteen languages, played seven instruments, had a voice that spanned four octaves, excelled at seven sports. He knew the histories and geographies of a hundred worlds and more, had studied mathematics and science at the doctorate level, could debate the works of both human and non-human philosophers.

I stared at him. Don't you realize what you've accomplished?

I've done nothing. He showed no pride. He had no referent for his achievements. I am a failure as a son. Why else would my father hide me? He paused, then made himself continue. Marlin stopped coming to see me. This always happened. They came for a while, then disappeared. Only my father always returned. His next thought was more ragged. My nurse—Camyllia. She was there when I was small. She took me for walks, played with me, sang me to sleep, and comforted me if I woke up afraid. She let me feel as if every moment we spent together was precious beyond words, that it would never come again so she had to make it the best it could be. He drew in a shaky breath. Then she went away. Father said she was sick . . .that she . . .died.

I saw Camyllia in his mind, a beautiful young woman, a brown-eyed version of Jaibriol. With her hair and eyes altered to look Highton, she could have been his twin. But I had no doubt it had been Jaibriol's eyes and hair that had been altered. Camyllia wasn't his sister. She was his mother.

As soon as that thought formed, I imagined a blanket over my mind, hiding it from Jaibriol. His father would have killed anyone who knew his son's true identity. That the mother had convinced Qox to let her live long enough for Jaibriol to remember her was as astonishing as it was heart wrenching.

Jaibriol saw through the cover I had laid over my thoughts. No. You're wrong. A tear ran down his face. Wrong.

Your father loved you. I made myself believe it so Jaibriol would. He isolated you because it was the only way to make sure no one hurt you. If any hint of what you truly are escapes, it will destroy you. Not to mention his father. He needed you to grow strong and learn to protect yourself.

His grip on my arm tightened. How can you think you know anything about my father's love? You're a Jagernaut. A killer. How can you feel love at all?

As soon as he formed the question, my mind responded. I tried to hold back, but he swept into my memories. He saw my childhood, a girl surrounded by an intense and loving family. He felt what it was like to live with other empaths, the fulfillment, and the gaping lack of it in his own life. He saw Rex, Helda, and Taas, understood how close we were. He saw me working with them, especially Rex, including on Tams—

And he found Tarque.

As his face contorted, he sank to his knees, pulling me with him until we were kneeling face to face on the carpet. He bowed his head and leaned forward, his grip so tight on my arms that his knuckles turned white. Even when his forehead came to rest against mine, he didn't look up, just kept staring at the floor. I dropped my Jumbler and clenched the cloth of his sleeves while my mind heaved a blanket of denial over the memory. But he whipped the blanket whipped away, and it flew out of our mental the tempest like a rag caught by the wind.

While Jaibriol battled with my memories of Tarque, I shook with my own nightmare. I knew why Jaibriol existed. He had a purpose his father and grandfather considered even more important than the purity of the Qox bloodline. They had created him for one reason and one alone—to take control of the Kyle-Mesh. Through him, the Traders would conquer Skolia.

Gradually our minds separated, like a storm abating. No one, not even the Rhon, could sustain the intensity of that contact for long. I became aware of the room again. Jaibriol and I were leaning into each other, he holding my arms as if he were my lover. I had gripped his sleeves so hard, the cloth had ripped in my hands. His face was wet with tears and I felt them on mine too. My Jumbler lay on the floor.

Jaibriol sat up, still holding on to me. "My father is not evil." His voice shook. "Hightons are not evil. You will see. You are wrong."

"You were there with me. You felt it."

The door's pager chimed, followed by a voice coming over the comm. "Prince Jaibriol?"

He dropped my arms as if they burned. For a moment I was afraid he wouldn't answer, forcing the guards to find out why. Then he drew in a ragged breath and spoke loudly. "What is it?"

"We're ready to re-activate the cyberlock, Your Highness."

Both Jaibriol and I stood up. Then he bent down and picked up my Jumbler.

The blood drained form my face. How could I have lost my weapon to him? He couldn't use it; the gun was keyed to my brain waves. But now that he had it, my bluff was worthless. And he knew my identity. All he had to do was say, "The Primary is in here."

Jaibriol handed me the Jumbler. "Go."

I backed into my hiding place behind the wardrobe. "The guards. In the garden."

He wiped his cheeks on his sleeve. Then he went to the door and touched a panel, turning off the lights. When the door slid open, the shadows hid his face. Cloth crinkled as a guard bowed.

"I was resting," Jaibriol said. "You will have to wait until tomorrow to turn on the lock."

"I'm sorry. Terribly sorry." The guard sounded nervous. "I'm afraid we have to do it now."

Anger mixed with fear stabbed my mind. Neither emotion was mine. Although I could read Jaibriol well enough to realize he was barriered to everyone else, he and I were in a link neither of us could break. Our meld had receded to a bearable intensity, but the connection remained. It was physical as well. The memory of his scent, his closeness, his muscled legs under my hands—my body responded with a surge of desire so intense I almost dropped the Jumbler again.

Block! The psicon flashed erratically, then popped and fizzled like a wet firecracker.

Overlaid on that unwanted arousal was another emotion, Jaibriol's loathing for the cyberlock, hateful, suffocating, dizzying . . .

I knew from my own experience that turning on the cyberlock was like being hit by vertigo that kept going until the lock deactivated. I wondered why Jaibriol's father had sent him here if the risk was so great, he thought his son needed cyberlock protection. In our joining I had found only a sense that Jaibriol wasn't sure himself.

"You will wait until tomorrow to turn it on," Jaibriol told the guard.

"I–I'm afraid I can't do that, sir."

Jaibriol spoke in a chillingly perfect Highton accent. "I'm ordering you to do it."

"I'm s–sorry. I'm v–very sorry." The man's voice kept shaking. "I–I have orders from your father."

"Give me six hours without it."

"I can't. I–I'm t–truly sorry, sir. A lot could happen in six hours."

"Two hours," Jaibriol said. "Or I shall be displeased."

"Your Highness, I can't," he said miserably. "If anything happened to you, the Emperor would execute me."

"Nothing will happen."

"I—six hours—it's a long time?" He sounded as if he were asking rather than telling.

Jaibriol's face eased into a smile. "I've heard your daughter is a gifted seamstress."

"Sir, please, my daughter has never offended any—"

"No, no." Jaibriol spoke pleasantly. "I have heard good reports. Has she applied to the Tailor's Guild?"

The guard hesitated. "She was turned down. She as no Aristo blood, you see."

"Perhaps I can mention her name to the Guild Master."

The guard's uniform crackled again and again, multiple bows this time. "Thank you, sir. Your Greatness. Your Exalted Highness." The words tumbled out over one another. "Thank you."

"Yes?" Jaibriol didn't sound pleasant anymore.

The guard took a breath. "Prince Jaibriol, before we activate the cyberlock I must oversee repairs to the security system. That will take me two hours. At least." He paused. "Possibly three. Will you need me before then?"

I almost snorted. Although the virus I had unleashed was effective, I doubted it would take even an hour to clean out the system.

Jaibriol's voice relaxed. "No, I won't be needing you. Take care of security."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you find the Primary?"

"No, sir. She went into the park and destroyed trees and power lines. Then she disappeared."

"Who is the guard I just saw down in the garden under my balcony?"

"Rak."

Jaibriol stiffened as if he had been struck. I caught a vivid image from him of the guard with the providers. Unease stabbed at me, a fear of Rak he never understood—

Block! The fear receded, but my psicon kept flashing.

"Send Rak to the control center," Jaibriol said. "He's to file a report immediately."

"Yes, Your Highness." The guard's uniform crackled.

After Jaibriol closed the door, he came over to me. "Sauscony—"

It was unsettling to hear a Highton speak my name with such longing. "Yes?"

"Stay with me."

"You know I can't do that."

He touched my cheek. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye," I whispered.

I went to the balcony and checked outside. Rak was walking across the lawn, headed for the house. The gardens were dark; either my mad virus had overloaded the system or someone had turned off the power and shut down the wildly sweeping flood lights. Two other guards were moving among the trees in another garden, but with the lights out, the balcony and trellis were dark.

It took me only seconds to slip down the trellis. I crept along the wall, hiding in shadows. Then I ran across the street and into the darkened park.

V
Denials

It was after midnight when I walked into the Inn. An Allied police officer was waiting in the lobby by the front desk. As soon as I entered, she came over to me. "Navarhos Valdoria?"

I looked at her blankly, too tired to struggle with translation programs.

"¿Español?" she asked.

"Un poco," I said.

"Ist Deutsch besser?" When I just kept looking at her, she said, "How about English?"

"Yes," I said, not because my English was any better than my Spanish, but because I didn't want to stand in the lobby all night.

"Are you Primary Valdoria?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I'm afraid I have to arrest you, ma'am."

"Can't." That wasn't actually true, though I hoped it would put her off. Under Skolian law, no civil authority could arrest a Jagernaut. The Allieds had made a fuss about that during their treaty negotiations with us. No one is above the law. They liked that phrase. But it was theirs, not ours. If a Jagernaut broke Skolian laws, the civil authorities could do no more than register a complaint with Imperial Space Command. That didn't mean we got off; ISC expected us to follow a code of honor meant to ensure we broke laws only if necessary to protect the Imperialate. It was a military matter, however. Of course, that was Skolian law. Right now I was in Allied territory.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the officer said. "Section 436, section G, paragraph 16 of Allied-Imperial Treaty MilCap allows for arrest and deportation of any Jagernaut found guilty of violating Allied—"

"All right," I growled. Then I squinted at her. "You handlock me?"

Relief flickered on her face. "No, I don't believe that will be necessary." She read me my rights; anything I said could and would be used against me and so on. The clerk at the front desk watched avidly. The story would probably be all over the city tomorrow: Imperial Primary wrecks Highton's mansion. I just hoped they didn't use it in one of their confounded amok-Jagernaut movies.

The officer took me to the station in her official flycar. The screen that separated the front from the back crackled every now and then, like an electrical discharge. Someone had removed the exit buttons in the back, leaving a smooth spherical cavity with a single seat where I sat. The officer strapped a restraining web across my body, apologizing as she fastened me into its constricting embrace. I felt like an idiot. I wondered what she would do if I told her I was a Rhon heir. It would certainly get me out of this mess, but then I would have to endure being lambasted by my half-brother for using my title to circumvent an Imperial-Allied treaty.

The police at the station were exceedingly courteous while they booked me for breaking and entering, assault and battery, damaging property, and violating a mesh node. Their attitude was weird. True, I was a Primary, but even so I had just walked all over their laws, making far more trouble than I had intended. Yet they almost seemed to approve of my actions.

They took holoshots of me, recorded my fingerprints and retinal patterns, and registered a tissue sample for DNA analysis. Then they put me in a room where five other women waited, all with dark hair and tight leather outfits that resembled my uniform. A policewoman lined us up facing a glassy wall that showed our reflections. When I put my hands in my pockets and scowled, the other five women in the line copied me. The whole thing was surreal.

I couldn't see through the glass, but I was ready to bet that whoever stood on the other side could see us. I tried to relax and let my mind probe beyond the wall. I sensed several people, but only vaguely; none were psions.

Then I hit the cavity.

It was Jaibriol's guard, the one with the providers. The hole in his mind was less threatening than with a true Aristo, but I still felt as if bugs crawled on my skin. And he was angry.

I withdrew like a shyback deer fleeing a hunter. As I ran, I sent the guard a vivid mental picture of another woman in the line. But I was pretty sure it was too late, that he had already identified me.

They took me to the police chief next, a portly man whose close-cropped hair stuck up from his head in a flat plane on the top, making him look like a bristly scrub brush. He spoke a language I didn't know, what sounded like the first one used by the officer who arrested me. When I shook my head, an officer behind him leaned down and said something to him in a low voice.

"You speak English?" the Chief asked me.

"Some," I said.

"How did you know where Lord Kyr was staying?"

Lord Kyr? "The Highton?"

"The man whose house you shot up."

My node gave several translations for "shot up," including emptied rounds of ammunition into. He must mean the mansion. "Lord Kyr's" mansion. Well, Jaibriol would be crazy to announce he was the Emperor's heir.

"Provider me tell where," I said. "I his mind get." No, that sounded awful. I accessed my translator and repeated what it told me. "I got the location from the mind of his guard's provider."

"I see." That seemed to be the answer the chief expected. Apparently the Allieds accepted telepathy more than they admitted in public. But why had he anticipated my answer? He had no way to know the guard had providers unless the guard told him, and I couldn't imagine a Trader discussing his pleasure slaves with the Allied police.

"What did she say to you?" the chief asked.

"The provider?"

"Yes."

I verified with my translator what I thought: she referred to a female. But the first provider I had reached had been a boy. I had spoken to neither him nor the girl. Was the chief asking misleading questions on purpose, perhaps testing me? The guard had no way to know I contacted his provider. Even if Jaibriol had spoken with the police, which I doubted, he didn't know I had been in contact with the providers. I wasn't sure if even the providers knew.

I felt no deception from the chief, though, only that he wanted to verify facts. So I said, "I never speak to provider. I touch mind of boy. Girl next."

He nodded. "That's what they told us."

He had spoken to them? "They okay?"

"The girl is better than the boy," he said. "She could leave our hospital if she wanted. But she doesn't want to be separated from her brother." He spoke quietly. "They would like to see you. I think they want to thank you."

No wonder the Aristo's guard had been angry. If his providers were in a Delos hospital, they were in neutral territory and couldn't be forced to return to him. But why did they want to thank me? I hadn't brought them to the hospital.

Then I realized that in the chaos at the mansion—with the guards searching for me and their security going wild—the providers could have escaped.

"Yes," I said. "I see them."

The hospital was a ten minute walk from the station. The nervoplex streets slumbered, quiet under our feet, with no hover traffic. Even the street lamps were dimmed. The large moon had passed its high point in the sky and was headed down to the horizon, shedding pale orange light over the sleeping city.

As we walked, I glanced at the chief. "The providers—they from Tams?"

"Not originally. Their parents were taskmakers brought to Tams a few years ago as part of an Aristo's household."

"So these providers, they are born slaves?"

"It's all they've ever known." The chief grimaced. "Hell, they can barely talk. Apparently even when they had the chance tonight, they almost didn't make a run for it. It took a lot of courage for them to do what they did."

Translate 'Make a run for it,' I thought.

In this context, it means 'attempt to escape,' my node answered.

No wonder the chief said they had courage. Just to think of escaping, they had to break years of conditioning. "You help them?"

"As much as we can," he said. "When the boy is released from the hospital, we'll send them to Earth. They'll have a host family there and counseling to help them adjust."

At least some benefit had come from the mess I had made tonight. The providers had sanctuary, that word the Allieds liked so much. Earth chose no side in the war between my people and the Traders, granting asylum to anyone who gave cause for needing it. I had always regarded them with suspicion because of that. Their sanctuary struck me as a convenient means for Imperial trouble makers to evade the authorities. Tonight I saw it differently.

The providers were in a private room. I recognized them as soon as the doctors ushered me in. They looked like fraternal twins, both about eighteen. The boy lay in the bed, propped up on pillows, and the girl sat in a chair next to him, showing him a holobook. They jumped as the door opened, their faces going pale.

I came forward slowly. "My greetings." I spoke Eubian, a language of the taskmaker castes. It was named after Eube Qox, Jaibriol's great-grandfather and the first Emperor. Eube was also the word the Traders used for their empire, the Eubian Concord. That name had to be one of their more specious creations. I doubted enslaved worlds like Tams Station felt any "concord" with their unasked-for masters.

The girl watched me with eyes the color of pale seashells. Her brother sat up slowly. He wore pajamas, but I saw the welts on his wrists and knew worse hid under his clothes. I didn't want to imagine what his owner had done to him—and owner was the right word despite the Aristos' attempts to convince the rest of the universe that their providers were "favored subjects" rather than slaves.

The youth spoke with diffidence. "Are you the one who came to the house?"

I nodded. "I'm glad you got out."

The girl said, "We're sorry we caused you so much trouble."

"We really are sorry," the boy said. "We didn't mean to be a problem."

I couldn't believe they were apologizing to me. "I'm sorry I couldn't have come earlier." Say eighteen years earlier.

"We won't cause any more problems," the girl said.

I gentled my voice. "You never made any problem."

The longer I talked with them, the worse I felt. They kept apologizing. Their minds were open, unprotected; I knew their shame at having been providers, at having caused a commotion, at just plain having been. To say they didn't like themselves was the understatement of the century. The marks the guard had left on them went far deeper than welts.

Hadn't the heartbender I saw ten years ago, following my experience with Tarque, said similar to me? No, I didn't want to think about that.

After we left the hospital, the police released me. They could have deported me for breaking their laws, but they showed no inclination to do it. I had a feeling the one they wanted to deport was the guard who pressed the charges, the man who had owned the two providers.

As I walked to the Inn, I brooded. When I thought of Rex, it hurt. I couldn't let my memory of Jaibriol become a wedge between us. Nor could I bear the knowledge that the one man who could be my Rhon mate represented everything I most hated. I doubted Jaibriol's father recognized the irony, that in trying to create the ultimate weapon to destroy my people, he had produced a remarkably decent human being.

Jaibriol's life, once he openly assumed his position as the Emperor's heir, would be hell. He would have to live as a Highton, trapped among a people who would sicken him. To survive he would have to become, in all appearances, just like them. If they ever learned the truth, they would turn on him in a way that would make the life of the two providers I had just met seem gentle in comparison. What would happen to Jaibriol when he realized the truth?

I already knew the answer. I had seen it in my half-brother Kurj, even in myself. The capacity of the human soul to harden was boundless.

I didn't want to imagine Jaibriol as he would become. I wanted to remember the extraordinary man I had met tonight. Maybe he would retain enough of that humanity to meet a Skolian Imperator at the peace table someday. He was the only Highton Emperor I could imagine genuinely talking peace with us. And that was why I could never reveal that Jaibriol was a Rhon psion.

I had melded with him. It was an experience my half-brother Kurj would never share. Even in the immensely unlikely event that the opportunity presented itself, Kurj would never consent. And without it, he would never accept my conviction that Jaibriol was our one chance to stop this war. If Kurj ever learned Ur Qox had sired an heir who could take control of the Kyle-Mesh, he would never rest until he stood over the Highton Heir's body, preferably after Jaibriol died an agonizing death.

I could barrier my mind to hide what I know. But it would raise a wall between me and everyone I loved. Rex would realize something was wrong. He would never guess the truth but he would know something had changed.

It was past midnight when I walked into the velvet and giltwood lobby at the Inn. As I passed the front desk, the clerk looked up from the holobook she had been dozing over. "Excuse me, ma'am," she said in English. She pulled out an envelope out form under the counter. "This was delivered for you about an hour ago."

That was odd. Who on Delos would send me a note in the middle of the night? I took the envelope. "Thank you."

As I walked toward the stairs, I tore open the envelope. The handwritten note said: I must talk to you. Come to dock four in the harbor. It had no signature.

Damn. I was exhausted. The last thing I wanted was to go run around the harbor. I went back to the desk, where the clerk nodded over her book. "Miss?"

She opened her eyes. "Yes?"

I held up the envelope. "Who this come?"

She peered at me. "Pardon me?"

I had never understood why the Allieds asked you to pardon them when you were the one being indecipherable. "This note," I said. "Who with it come?"

"A man. I don't know who he was."

"How he look?"

"Black hair. Dark eyes. He sounded Croatian."

"What Croatian?"

"It's a language from Earth."

Why would an Earth man ask me to meet him at a remote dock in a sea harbor? It was crazy. I should go upstairs and sleep. But I wouldn't rest until I found out what he wanted. So once again I headed outside.

It took ten minutes to reach the harbor, which lay southeast of the Arcade. Breakers rolled in over knife-coral reefs whose spires jutted out of the water, some as tall as a person, others soaring into the air for ten or more meters. Sparks flashed as iridescent insects flew in and out of the coral, building it up with secretions from their bodies just as the skeletons of sea animals extended it under water. Glints of phosphorescence jumped in the sea, blue and green, purple and pink, flashes of gold. Gates and arches and channels had been cut in the coral, passages that allowed even the largest freighters to enter the harbor. Waves frothed and jumped high in bursts of spray.

The moon hung at the horizon like a huge orange portal big enough to swallow a fleet of ships. The salt in the air was so thick, I could taste sodium chloride on my lips. A sweet odor of sealace tickled my nose. Its delicate fronds lay everywhere, speckled by tiny bioluminescent insects, washed up by breakers or dragged onto the piers by cargo handlers working around the ships.

Many piers were dark, some empty, others with ships hunkered in their docks, groaning as the wind pulled at them. Lamps glared on pier twenty-seven, where a team of handlers loaded cargo onto a freighter with sails of fluorescent purple nervoplex. Cranes swung boxes over the water and into ship holds while muscled handlers in blue caps and red shirts lifted cargo or shouted orders.

Dock four was at the far end of the harbor. Darkness shrouded it, and a silence broken only by the lap-lap of waves against pilings. I paused under the pier, hidden in the shadows. It was cold, and I pulled my jacket tight, sealing it up the front. Breakers swirled around my boots, then withdrew over gem-sand that sparkled blue and gold.

"Sauscony?"

I froze. A tall figure stood by a piling. He had his collar turned up and a hood pulled over his head, but I knew him. I doubted he could have heard me coming, yet he was looking straight at where I stood hidden.

"Jaibriol?" I asked.

He came over, pushing back his hood. In the darkness, when I couldn't see that his eyes were red or that his hair glinted, he looked even more beautiful.

"I was afraid you wouldn't come," he said.

I held up the envelope. "I just got your note. How long have you been waiting?"

"About an hour."

That long? "The clerk said an Earth man brought it."

"I came here in the dark so no one would recognize me. Then I paid a man to take the note."

"But how did you leave the mansion without alerting your guards? Isn't the cyberlock on?"

"I talked them out of it for another few hours." Dryly he added, "I've become quite good at it. If Rak isn't there." He grimaced. "Rak insists on the field. I think he enjoys seeing it bother me."

"Rak is the guard with the two providers?"

"Not any more. They ran away."

"He probably does enjoy seeing it hurt you, even if he doesn't consciously realize it. You have to barrier your mind against him better."

For a moment he watched me. Then he said, "You tell me Aristos are sadists. You show me horrors. And Rak's providers refuse to come home. I want to disbelieve—" He paused. "But regardless of what you say, my guard is not an Aristo."

"He has Aristo blood," I said. "Probably more than you do yourself."

His anger sparked. "You insult my bloodline without a thought of what that means to me."

I laid my hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. But it's the truth."

When I touched him, he stiffened. Then he sighed, as if capitulating, and pulled me into his arms. I was the one who went rigid then. But feeling him warm and firm against my body was too much. I laid my cheek against his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist. He bent his head, searching for my face with an unexpected clumsiness. His prodigious intellect and Highton manner made him seem older, enough so that I had forgotten he was hardly more than a teenager, one who had spent his entire life alone.

As soon as he kissed me, I forgot his age. Our minds started to blend again, an intimacy that made my desire for him flare like fire hitting oil.

An image of Rex flickered in my mind. My longing for what Jaibriol could give me was irrelevant. I had given Rex a pledge.

I pushed him away. "I'm sorry."

At first he wouldn't let go. Finally, when I didn't respond, he dropped his arms. "I hope this man Rex appreciates his fortune."

"I shouldn't have come here."

"Stay. Please." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. It was a Vscript, the written record of a virtual telegram. "I received this two hours ago. I want you to tell me your version of what it means."

I took the card—and barely kept my mouth from dropping open. Its seal was unmistakable; it came from his father, the emperor. The heading indicated it had been decoded by Jaibriol's console, so it must have been sent in secret. The man who ruled the Trader Empire had certainly never meant an Imperial Jagernaut to see it.

The Highton message was brief: J'briol—I have sent flags to smooth the situation on Tams. Proceed there to oversee.

I closed my eyes, then opened them and reread it to make sure I had it right. "What have you been told this means?"

"Nothing. But I can guess. Smoothing the situation must mean he plans to intimidate them, maybe fire on the planet." He spoke freely, willingly divulging information to an enemy officer without even the guarded tone he used with his own retinue. "My father wants me there by the time the action is finished to see first hand how to deal with a problem like Tams." Self-disgust filled his voice. "I am not much of an heir. I think he means for that to change."

"You think Tams is a problem?"

"Yes."

I clenched my fist, crumpling the Vscript. "That 'problem' comes from a lot of desperate people terrified of their Highton conquerors."

"Sauscony." He took hold of my shoulders. "You see the situation through your own biases. I know you believe them. But I see it differently."

I jerked away, wondering if I should hate him after all. "Then see this, Highton." I crammed the card back into his hand. "We've intercepted these coded messages before. A 'flag' is a battle cruiser and its associated warships. You want to know what 'smoothing' means? Those warships are going to destroy the Tams atmosphere."

"How can you believe such a lie?"

"Lie?" I wanted to shake him. "I've seen it. Your father had it done to both CJ4 and Bullseye when the people overthrew their Aristo lords there."

His anger flared. "The people of CJ4 destroyed themselves with chemical warfare. I've never heard of Bullseye. Perhaps your propaganda ministers created it."

"I don't need to convince you." My voice quieted. "Your life may have been sheltered, but you're no fool. As soon as you start living among the Hightons, you'll know the truth. You must already suspect, despite what you say, or you would have never asked me here tonight."

No arrogance showed on his face, only pain. "If my father tells me the truth, I must believe you are a monster. I should kill you now before you have a chance to become Imperator of Skolia. If you tell me the truth, my father is a monster and he is the one I should kill." He spread his hands. "Kill a person I love? I could never do it. Not my father. Not you."

I stared at him. "How can you think you love me? You've only known me a few hours."

"We've known each other our entire lives." He touched my temple. "We lived them together tonight."

I pushed his hand away. He was wrong. I could never love the Trader Emperor's son.

"It won't go away, Sauscony." He met my gaze steadily. "No matter how you deny it, we will live with what happened tonight for the rest of our lives. If I become Emperor and you become Imperator, we will have to live with it even as we swear to destroy everything the other most values."

"You won't value what you inherit." I barely kept my voice calm. "You'll hate everything it represents. And you'll live in terror, knowing you're only a breath away from becoming its victim."

"If that is true, then I will change it."

"Change it? Gods, Jaibriol, the structure of your empire is built, from its foundations up, on the Aristo need for providers. It's not a social problem you can correct or a few evil people you can remove from office. You can no more stop the brutality of the Aristos than you can eliminate their drive to eat or sleep. If you try, they'll crucify you."

His fist clenched. "You're wrong."

I spoke gently. "I'm sorry for what your life is going to become. I wish I could change it."

"I don't want pity. I want you."

His longing was so intense I could almost touch it, the ache of a man denied human contact his entire life, a child denied love from the day of his birth. And I wanted him so much it burned. But if I admitted it even here, where no one but he and I would ever know, I could never face anyone else I loved.

"I can't stay with you," I said.

He took a deep breath and spoke in his cold Highton accent. "Then go."

Somehow I made myself turn and walk away into the shadows.

VI
Blackstar Squad

I raced back to the Inn, calling with my mind to Rex, Helda and Taas: Get up. NOW. As I strode into the hotel, Rex was running down the staircase that swept into the lobby like the train of a blood-red wedding dress. I ran past the startled clerk and met Rex halfway up the stairs.

"I found out why the Aristo is here." I paused, out of breath. "He's Qox's son."

Rex stared at me. "What?"

"The Heir." Saying it out loud, I heard how fantastic it sounded. "That man we saw—he's the Highton Heir."

Helda and Taas appeared at the top of the stairs, striding around the corner in time to hear my statement. They made in down to where I stood with Rex in two seconds.

"His name is Jaibriol," I said. "Jaibriol Qox." I looked around at them. "It's why Rex and I thought he was familiar. He looks like his grandfather."

"How you find all this out?" Helda asked.

"I figured out where he was staying. I broke into his mesh system there. His father sent him a coded message about Tams."

"You've been busy," Rex said.

I grimaced. "I've been arrested, mug shot, lined up with five clones, questioned by the politest police alive and gone to the hospital to see two providers who escaped when I crashed Qox's mansion. They asked the Allieds for sanctuary."

"You did all that in one night?" Taas asked.

Helda smiled. "Why you need us, Soz?"

I took a breath. "Because Ur Qox is going to flood out Tams."

"What does that mean?" Taas asked.

I regarded him steadily. "At Bullseye he did it by converting part of the planet's moon into hydrogen. At CJ4 he used an asteroid. They pour hydrogen into the atmosphere and use gigantic discharges to make it react with the oxygen and produce water." I grimaced. "It's going to rain good and hard on Tams. When it's over, there won't be any oxygen left in the atmosphere and the surface will be flooded." I thought of Allied religious texts I had read. No ark was going to save Tams. When Lucifer impersonated God, nobody survived.

Rex's jaw stiffened. He and I had been with the battalion that found CJ4 after its destruction. ISC kept the record of what we had found under tight security. They didn't want the panic they feared would happen if our people realized Qox could destroy our worlds the same way he had done his own, should our precarious defenses ever weakened.

"When does it happen?" Helda asked.

"He's sent flags," I said. "I doubt they're there yet."

"We have warn Tams," Taas said. "Tell them to evacuate."

Rex spoke quietly. "Evacuate in what?"

I felt as if my stomach dropped. What indeed? The Trader sabotage had destroyed the engines and EI pilots of the rebels' space craft. How could Tams evacuate without functioning ships?

Taas looked from me to Rex. "Even without factories, they could still have been trying to rebuild their ship drives."

"Rebuilding isn't their biggest problem," Rex said. "It's the EI pilots that run the ships."

"Tams is a mining station," I said. "They don't have the expertise to create an EI pilot from scratch, especially not this fast."

"We can send them some," Helda said. "We make them from the EI's on our own ships."

"Yes." Taas tensed as if readying himself for launch. "We can put them in robot drones and launch from the stand-off weapons platform in E-sector."

Rex considered the thought. "If the drones don't make it through, we won't have time for a second try before the Trader flags arrive."

"The rebels have control of the ground defenses," Taas pointed out.

"Even so," Rex said. "The orbital defenses aren't trifles, and the Trader military has those. We have to succeed on the first try. Once the flags get there, it's over. We need to send in human pilots."

They looked at me. I knew the decision they were waiting to hear. We all knew the odds. Warfare had evolved terrifyingly beyond the abilities of humans to fight it. Although drones with EI pilots couldn't match the human mind when it came to innovation, no human could survive against the light speed processing abilities of a drone or its ability to endure immense accelerations.

Except a Jagernaut.

The enhanced link between our brains and our ships boosted our minds into the ship's EI. Add to that the advances in the stasis technology that protected humans from g-forces and the end result was a weapon with the speed and endurance of a drone and the creativity of the human mind.

"We're the only squad in this quadrant," I said.

"When do we leave?" Taas asked.

That was it. No one said a word about our nil chance of success. They just waited to hear my answer, waited to follow me into a fight we couldn't win. Even if we got the EI's through to Tams, no way existed to evacuate six hundred million people in time.

Rex's thought came to me. If we save only one life, it's worth it.

Rex . . . I had been so afraid that what had happened tonight would destroy what I felt for him. But as soon as his thoughts touched mine, I knew our connection was as strong as ever. This was Rex, who had been with me for years, more than a friend, soon to be a husband. Now I had to do what I swore would never happen—send the man I loved into combat. Yes, I had been doing it for years, but I had never acknowledged the truth of that until tonight.

They watched me, waiting for orders.

"First we send a report to HQ," I said. Backup would never reach us in time, but we had to try. "Then we leave."

* * *

It was hours before sunrise when we jogged out of the gate at the starport. Our ships waited on the field, Jag starships, the single-pilot craft that gave Jagernauts their name. Technically the craft were JG-17 fighters. The name Jag came from "lightning jag," a nickname test pilots had given the prototype, the JG-1.

The ships looked like alabaster works of art. On the ground, they were elongated, with wings extended. In flight, they would change according to our needs: spread wings for subsonic speeds; wings tight against the body in hypersonic flight; rounder shape to minimize surface area during interstellar flight; more rounded for stealth or battle. Right now, their weapons were retracted, hidden in protected bays.

I strode next to my Jag, my hand sliding across its surface like a skater on ice. It had a tellerene hull, a composite threaded with microscopic wires designed from fullerene tubes. Lightweight and fatigue resistant, tellerene retained its strength even at the high temperatures of hypersonic reentry. It was also self-repairing; the dangling bonds in a broken fullerene molecule reattached, mending the wire. The hull showed fewer of the pits, grooves and other damage from space travel, a smoothness that was one more factor in optimizing its performance. Like their pilots, Jags were top-of-the-line technology, fast and deadly.

I stopped midway between the nose and the tail. Had I not already known about the tiny silver prong there, I might never have found it in the featureless hull. As soon as I pushed my wrist against the prong, it snicked into my socket.

Connection, my node thought.

Verified. The response came from Blackstar, the ship's EI.

The airlock whooshed opened, a tiny hole that widened into a human-sized oval so fast its edges shimmered. The outer and inner doors opened simultaneously; Blackstar had analyzed the atmosphere and found it acceptable.

As I climbed into the cabin, the inner hull activated, glowing with diffuse light. The cabin was small, less than two meters wide and three long. Equipment filled the free space and bulkhead compartments: cocoon seats and a bunk, gear, hand weapons, food dispenser, waste processor, water line, whatever I needed to survive in space.

As soon as I touched the membrane that separated the cockpit from the cabin, it dilated like the shutter on a high speed holocam. As I slid into the pilot's seat, it folded around me like a glove and released its cocoon, a swath of spun material thick enough to cushion against acceleration but not so much that it would interfere with my movements. The exoskeleton snapped into place, encasing me in a frame of equipment and clicking a psiphon into the socket at the base of my brain stem. A visor lowered over my head and data scrolled across its display. As the seat registered my weight, the forward holoscreens produced a three-dimensional view of the area outside. Rex's ship was to starboard, Taas and Helda to port. I could see other airfields, with their runways and launch pads, stretching out across the flat landscape.

The Evolving Intelligence of the Jag spoke in my mind: Blackstar attending.

Acknowledged, I thought. I needed no other entry procedure, no codes, nothing. Blackstar was tuned to my brain; if anyone else tried to use the Jag without authorization it would lock up every system on the ship.

Boosting to psiberspace, Blackstar thought.

I entered Kyle space as a black wavepacket rippling across the dark grid. A spark appeared next to me, growing into a second wavepacket, a red one with fiery glitters. A gold packet appeared next, followed by green.

Redstar here, Rex thought.

Goldstar here, Helda thought.

Greenstar here, Taas thought.

Blackstar acknowledging, I answered. Our exchange flashed by in a fraction of a second, far faster than unaided human thought could have done.

A psicon shaped like a lock blinked on my mental display. Then Blackstar thought, Security cloak at full strength. Squad presence undetectable to other users.

Good. Link, I thought.

Red linked. Gold linked. Green linked.

With the Jags amplifying our mental link, I could pick up thoughts from Rex, Helda and Taas in the background of my mine. When I concentrated on Taas, the murmur resolved into his mental commands to Green. I relaxed my concentration and his words receded. All their displays ran in the background of mine, waiting to be called forth if I needed them.

It had taken years of training to discipline my mind so I could separate my perceptions of that display—what Jagernauts called the mindscape—from my awareness of my own environment. I had to retrain my mind so I could think within that constant background noise. Many psions never managed it, which was another reason so few Jag pilots existed.

I rubbed my temples. We paid a price for this link; the energy required to maintain it, both in terms of our own minds and our ship's resources, limited the circle to no more than four Jagernauts. Nor could humans sustain the intensity of that boosted connection for long. But when it worked, the Jag link was a miracle. We could communicate anywhere, under any conditions, instantaneously.

Ready? I thought.

Redstar ready, Rex answered

Goldstar ready, Helda answered.

After a moment I thought, Taas?

Another pause. Then: Greenstar ready.

Do you have a problem? I asked.

No. Just took a moment to settle in.

His delay was normal for a new squad member. But in the situation we faced, it could be fatal. Under normal circumstances, I would never have expected an untried pilot to fly this mission. But we had no choice. I just hoped his virgin flight didn't end up as his last.

Coordinate tests, I thought. Having each ship verify the pre-flight tests of the others gave a four-way check of our readiness. We ran the Jags through their paces: nav, cyber, weapons, com, hydraulics.

Checking inversion engines, Blackstar thought.

Inversion. Even after so many years, it still had the power to fascinate me. We hadn't conquered the light barrier—we had snuck around it. To go at faster-than-light speeds, or superluminal, meant passing through the speed of light, where our mass would become infinite compared to slower objects, our length shrink to nothing, and our time stop. It was impossible. For centuries, humans had known that no ship could travel faster than light—and for centuries, humans had been wrong.

The solution had turned out to be simple. At superluminal speeds, mass and energy became imaginary, square roots of negative numbers. To reach the superluminal universe, we needed only to add an imaginary part to our speed. Poof. The singularity at light speed disappeared. A ship went around light speed like a flycar left the road to go around a tree. Except for starships, the "road" was the real universe.

Of course doing the math was a lot easier than designing an engine. But when our ancestors succeeded, the way to the stars had opened. We adopted the word "inversion" from the Allieds because it so aptly described how the process felt. The word actually came from a more esoteric source, referring to a mathematical correspondence between superluminal and subluminal space derived by the Earth scientists Mignani and Recami during the late twentieth century.

The engine would rotate my ship out of the real universe and into an imaginary one, passing through a bizarre form of existence where we were part real and part imaginary. The transition was disorienting, to say the least; I had no desire to find out what would happen if we spent longer than an instant there. So we approached the "tree" as closely as possible before we left the road, which meant we pushed close to light speed before we rotated into superluminal space or returned to our normal spacetime. That meant we came out of inversion at relativistic speeds, blasting the area with high-energy radiation and particles. Trying that too close to solid objects courted disaster. If the ship came out anywhere except in a near vacuum, it also displaced molecules of matter with explosive power, blowing up itself as well as whatever it hit. So we inverted far away from planets or other bodies.

Inversion had brutally changed warfare. With ships and missiles that could burst out of inversion at close to light speed, the concept of a front line became obsolete. Our defenses developed with our offensive capabilities, making it possible to protect our settled worlds in marginal safety. But we couldn't watch all space. Huge regions remained contested, places where no clear boundaries existed defining what was Eubian, Skolian, and Allied.

Inversion check complete, Blackstar thought.

Thruster check? The Jag would use its fusion engine close to the planet, but in space it relied on photon thrusters.

Thrusters initialized.

What about our fuel?

Positron containment secure.

Good. The magnetic containment bottle that held the positrons of its fuel was its own universe, existing only while the inversion engine operated. During flight, the bottle drew on the immense cosmic ray flux in complex space. It spread its fuel through both real and imaginary space by varying the imaginary parts of the charge and mass for its contents, allowing it to hold far more charge than in real space alone. It was simple to do, unlike with people; the psychological trauma of being both real and imaginary had no effect on particles.

As the bottle leaked positrons into an interaction area, a selector culled relativistic electrons from space. Matter/Antimatter. It interacted in glorious bursts of energy, producing our thrust. Gamma ray shields and superconducting grids prevented waste heat from destroying the ship. A stasis coil kept us from becoming a smear of plasma on our seats during acceleration. G-forces couldn't hurt the ship in stasis because our quantum state remained fixed. We didn't freeze exactly; our atoms continued to vibrate, rotate, and otherwise behave as they had been doing when the coil activated. The atomic clock within us that measured our time continued to work. But no atoms could change quantum state, which meant the ship became rigid even to huge forces.

Interrupt, Blackstar thought.

What happened? I asked.

The image of an Allied satellite intruded into the mindscape, showing so much detail, I could see bolts in its hull. A coded message from the Allieds also appeared. It was a code we had broken; as the gibberish flashed across my mindscape, Blackstar gave me a translation. For flaming sake. The message was about me. The Delos authorities were sending their report of my arrest to ISC.

Why did that display come up now? I asked Blackstar.

When I detected the transmission, your node flagged "Tiller Smith." He's listed as the person who translated the Greek report into Skolian.

I directed a thought to my spinal node. Why did you flag on Tiller?

His name registered eighty-two percent on your interest scale, my node answered.

That made no sense. Why would it predict Tiller Smith would interest me so much? The last thing I needed, when preparing for battle, was extraneous satellite images dumped into my pre-flight mindscape.

Run a diagnostic on your routines, I told it. Tiller shouldn't register so high.

Running. Then: Tiller Smith didn't cause the flag. It was your response to a book he gave you.

I couldn't imagine why a book of indecipherable poetry would agitate the node. Cancel all flags concerned with Verses on a Windowpane.

Cancelled. The satellite display vanished.

Primary Valdoria, Taas thought. I'm getting a spillover onto my grid of your satellite images. I can't cut it off.

What commands did you try? I asked.

Stop, cancel, break, quit, exit, bye, system, chop, stomp, flush, dump, and curse.

Curse? What is that?

I swore at it.

I smiled. Try erase.

Ah. Yes, that worked. His erase psicon appeared in my mind, a buxom woman wearing a few scraps of cloth and holding a can of paint. She painted the hem of her skirt and it disappeared, showing even more thigh. Then she vanished back to Taas's system.

I laughed. You all ready to go?

Ready, Rex thought.

Ready, Helda thought.

Ready, Taas thought.

Let's do it, I thought.

The tower cleared us for take-off. But as we taxied toward the launch pad, the controller's voice crackled on my comm. "Sorry, Primary Valdoria. The four of you will have to hold. We have a snag on twelve."

"Acknowledged." As we slowed to a stop, I thought, What's the problem?

Blackstar showed me several ships on a launch pad we had to pass to reach twelve. These craft are preparing to lift off.

The Trader insignia of a black puma gleamed on their hulls. They waited in the predawn air, the glare from field lamps glittering on their hulls like ice. The sleekest was a Streamliner, the starship of preference for Hightons. The three heavier craft were Escorts, which often guarded the Streamliners. Given that most Hightons traveled with only one Escort, two at the most, I had a good idea what passenger this Streamliner carried.

Rex spoke in my mind. Qox.

Yes, I thought.

Taas's thought sparked like an iron arc. We should blast him off the pad.

Helda's thought rumbled. Ya.

I scowled. You're talking about assassination.

Ya, Helda agreed.

Let's do it, Taas thought.

I couldn't believe it. They were serious. They wanted to go out there and blow up a civilian ship with no provocation, murdering a major interstellar leader. Cut it out, I told them.

My displays all indicated launch pad twelve was clear. I was sure we could have used it. I also had no doubt the tower didn't want us anywhere near the Traders. They probably feared we would do exactly what Taas and Helda suggested.

Warning lights flared across the Trader's launch pad, strobing the darkness. Clouds of steam swirled around the ships, and one of the Escorts lifted off, blasting the pad with exhaust. The others followed in a staggered pattern, the rumble of their leaving growling through my bones.

* * *

We hurtled through space, racing the specter of Qox's flags.

In inversion, we could go as fast as we wanted, just never slower than light speed. If anyone on Delos could have watched, they would have seen our ships get shorter and our mass increase as we approached light speed. After we went superluminal, speeding up increased our length and decreased our mass. At faster than 141 percent of light, time contracted. Right now we could shoot through space for a century and only an hour would pass on Delos. If we ever reached infinite speed our Jags would have no mass, they would stretch the length of the universe, and time would stand still everywhere else while forever passed for us. It always amazed me that even with all this going on, the ship looked completely normal to me, because relative to it, I wasn't moving at all.

We had a problem, however. As we had pushed close to light speed, our time had dilated, which meant it passed more slowly for us than for Tams. It jumped us a few hours into the future, stealing valuable moments we desperately needed.

Blackstar, plot pastward course, I thought. Compensate for the time dilation.

Course plotted.

Good. At superluminal speeds we could travel into the past. If anyone on Tams could have watched, they would have seen this: after we left Delos, four new ships and four antimatter ships appeared in the Tams system, eight in all, each pair-produced from photon annihilations. The matter ships and their pilots were identical to our squad. In fact, they were us.

While the matter ships continued to Tams, the antimatter squad flew backward to Delos in a time reversed path, at superluminal speeds, gaining fuel rather than losing it, like a movie run in reverse. At the point where I had told Blackstar to go pastward, the observer would see our ships meet the antimatter ships—and annihilate. The energy created by our mutual destruction would balance that lost when the new ships and their antimatter siblings were created near Tams.

Of course we saw no bizarre creations or destructions. We were at rest relative to our ships, so as far as we knew, we simply traveled from Delos to Tams. The end result was the same; our four Jags arrived at Tams sometime after we left Delos. I vehemently wished we could reach Tams before we left, with enough time to evacuate the planet. But no ship had ever succeeded in thwarting the laws of cause and effect by coming out of inversion before entering it. The best we could do was reach Tams the instant after we inverted at Delos. Usually it took longer, anywhere from hours to days. The farther we traveled, the more errors accumulated and the bigger the discrepancy. I just hoped we made it in time. Although Qox's flags had farther to go, they carried entire systems dedicated to optimizing spacetime variables.

However, we had an advantage they could never match.

No electromagnetic signal could reach a superluminal ship. The only way to communicate among ships in inversion was to shoot superluminal particles—tachyons—at one another. No one had yet figured out how to make tachyons reliably carry information, particularly given that during inversion, the signals could arrive before they were sent. So inverted ships traveled in limbo, drifting. A squad that entered in tight formation could leave inversion spread out across both space and time.

Except for Jags.

Rex, Helda, Taas and I were one mind. More than one mind. We were a part of the Kyle-Mesh, which gave us instantaneous communication with a star-spanning network. We coordinated our actions with a precision that defied light speed itself.

Even Kyle space had limitations. If we entered the Kyle-Mesh after time dilation jumped us into the future, we would link to a future timeline. In theory, it could let us look ahead in time. But if we then returned to the past, as we were doing now, the timeline would be off. Given the situation at Tams, even the small amount of time we would need to dissolve and reform the link in the right time could kill us. All our peek at the future would tell us was that we died in battle because we weren't prepared for what the Trader ships were doing at the moment we actually engaged them. The very act of checking our future increased the chances we would learn we died in combat. So I kept us in the timeline consistent with the time we left Delos.

Blackstar, I thought. Check the Kyle-Mesh. Any readings on Qox's flags?

One of our sentry ships has sighted Eubian warships on approach to Tams. Estimated arrival times appeared in my mindscape.

How many?

A display of Trader vessels appeared in my mindscape. Two battle cruisers, an orbital platform, and three Shieldcraft. Also one labcraft.

I grimaced. Those had to be the flags. A labcraft could convert even moon into chemicals to react with the Tams atmosphere. At least the flags had no idea we were coming. I wanted to be in and out of Tams before they showed up.

What about the Streamliner that took off from Delos? I asked.

It replaced the display with images of Jaibriol's ships. Their present course puts them at Tams at roughly the same time as the flags.

Any data on the Tams situation?

The last reports indicated the rebels controlled the ground defenses. However, all of their links to the Kyle-Mesh are inoperable.

No surprise there. The Traders would have destroyed those links as fast as possible to make sure our intelligence was dated.

Taas sent a thought. What about their orbital defense systems?

He sounded calm, but I felt his tension. Blackstar responded to my concern by showing me an image of Taas in his cockpit. Data flashed under it: pulse, blood pressure, temperature, breathing rate, brain activity.

Hey, Taas thought. I'm fine.

I let the image fade. We'll probably find hordes of sat-bangs in orbit. Sat-bangs were a nuisance, low-value decoys that were only good for one missile or an old style laser. Their electronic signatures made them appear as high value targets, though, so they seemed far more dangerous than they actually were.

Robot drones too, I thought. Possibly a robot crewed Sentinel.

Why a Sentinel? Helda asked. Putting a platform in orbit makes it vulnerable.

I swapped that over to Rex, who had the expertise on platforms.

They have no moon to use for a base, so they need something in orbit, Rex answered. They have to have something up there like a Sentinel, because the rebels control the ground defenses. That could outweigh the Sentinel's vulnerability, especially given they've no reason to expect our attack.

The prospect of a Sentinel worried me. It would add vicious fangs to the orbital defenses. In theory, a Jag squad coming out of inversion could take on an orbital platform and survive; realistically, if we didn't knock it out immediately, with the advantage of surprise, our chances plummeted.

How about manned Solos? Taas asked.

It was a good question. The Solos were the closest Trader counterpart to our Jags.

Only a few, Rex thought. Normally ground based. But they may be in orbit here.

Especially given that Solos carry sophisticated EIs, I added. If the rebels capture even one, they have an EI to adapt for their own ships.

What about tau missiles? Helda asked.

Solos have them, I thought. Just hope it's not too many. Taus were equipped with inversion drives, which turned them into miniature starships. The Traders were concerned with what was happening on the planet, though, not in space, which I hoped meant they put the expensive and bulky tau missiles low on their list of priorities.

Of course, they could cripple the rebellion by smashing a tau into Tams at relativistic speed. The rebels had made the same assumption as had the rest of the sane universe, that Ur Qox wouldn't destroy such a desirable territory. We had been wrong, all of us. The Tams resistance was a symbol of defiance, one far more potent to Qox than we had realized, powerful enough that he wanted them destroyed in the most dramatic way possible as a warning to any others who thought to defy his rule.

Considering our options, I thought our best bet was to come out of inversion as close to Tams as possible, launching a cloud of smart missiles. Well-settled planets had defenses against relativistic attack, but Tams was a small station in a backwater region. That might give us a chance of success. Whether or not it was more than a vanishingly small chance was another story; I had seen partial stats on its ODS, or orbital defense system. It wasn't trivial.

When we reach Tams, I thought, our advantages will be surprise, speed, and our Jag link. Disadvantages: we're four Jags against a full ODS and we can't communicate with the rebels until we come out of inversion. Strategy: reinvert close to the planet, only twenty million kilometers out, in a close formation. We transmit our warning to the rebels using neutrino comms and exhaust modulation. The Traders would be hard pressed to stop either; the gamma source produced by our exhaust would be a spectacular beacon, and neutrinos went through almost anything. Immediately release a cloud of MIRVs. The MIRVs, or multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles, would be traveling at relativistic speeds with us, giving them the energy equivalent of megaton bombs. After we knock out the ODS, we deliver the EI's brains to the colony.

Understood. The response echoed from all four ships.

Ready to reinvert, Blackstar thought.

I fired the photon thrusters—and went into stasis. The only way I knew I hadn't been conscious while we decelerated was by the discontinuous change in speed on my displays. The Jag slowed down in a series of jumps I perceived as continuous. The stars moved forward, converging on a point in front of the ship. Their colors shifted toward blue, then went ultraviolet and disappeared from my screens. Blackstar created a holomap showing the stars as they collapsed into the point—

—and we roared out of inversion in perfect formation, blasting our warning to Tams as we hurtled toward the planet, preceded by a swarm of relativistic missiles.

Blackstar flooded my mind with data; the Tams ODS reacted to our attack by sending what looked like an entire fleet of Sentinels. But I recognized those signatures—most were decoys.

Enemy taus sighted—and disappeared, Blackstar thought.

Evade! The taus would disappear only if they inverted—

—and I came out of stasis. Blackstar had thrown the Jag into such an abrupt course change that the stasis coil had kicked in, protecting me from the lethal accelerations.

Taus detonated to port, Blackstar thought. Stats poured into my spinal node faster than an unboosted brain could absorb. Tau missiles equipped with inversion drives were catching our MIRVs and inverting. They targeted our positions and reinverted, exploding both themselves and their MIRV captives in violent bursts of radiation. The taus had to invert to catch us, but their foray through inversion threw them off. If they could have tracked us while they were superluminal, they might have caught us, but they came out either seconds too late or in the wrong place.

We hurtled beyond the planet's orbit and headed for the sun, accelerating, faster, faster—

Invert, I thought.

My stomach wrenched as we entered superluminal space. We kept accelerating, up to millions of times light speed. Time went faster for us than for Tams, so we could come around and re-enter the system with only seconds passing there. We came out of inversion a few million kilometers from the planet, flying "out of the sun," spraying our last MIRVs in a cloud ahead of the squad.

ODS sterilized, Blackstar thought.

Data poured into our mindscapes. We had eliminated the entire system: taus, decoys, drones, and a Sentinel orbiting platform. Helda whooped, and Rex sent me an image of his wickedly exultant grin. We had done it!

Taas's laugh rumbled in my mind. The ODS were against us, but we beat them.

I groaned. Continue dumping velocity on approach to Tams.

We "braked" down, flicking into stasis, again, again, we were nearing Tams now, slowing for atmospheric entry—

I came out of stasis to the scream of alarms. Stats reeled through my mindscape: Solos and cybernetic drones were boiling up from the planet.

Damn! Engage shrouds!

Three thoughts answered in a light speed pulse. Engaged.

We vanished. Blackbody shielding turned our hulls into surfaces that reflected no light. It was minimal stealth; the Traders knew we were here, and every time we accelerated our exhaust gave us away.

Helda, get down as far as you can, I thought. We'll cover you. Drop the EI's in a drone. I didn't know if the rebels could recover it, but we no longer had choices. We had lost our advantage of surprise and used up our MIRVs. Nor could we do more inversion tricks, because if accelerated to relativistic speeds, it would leave Helda undefended while she tried to do the drop.

Blackstar gave me its analysis of the Solos and drones. They were coming from the remains of an underground base, the only beleaguered remains of the ground defenses. It looked as if the Trader military had overcome the rebels, and the insurgents had blown up most of the defense installations rather than let them be recaptured.

Prime Annihilators, I thought. Like Jumblers and photon thrusters, these mammoths worked on pair annihilation. But Annihilators were the mammoths. They used antiprotons, with energies two hundred times greater than positrons, millions of times greater than wimpy bitons. No matter that beams were easier to avoid than smart missiles; Annihilators offered the best offense against ships in stasis. A ship with its quantum state frozen could survive immense forces—including enemy fire. They were more fragile to beams than missiles, however, because annihilating matter was easier than deforming it.

Blackstar, I thought. Do the Trader ships have inversion capability?

Yes. Blackstar showed me images of four drones and five Solos. Three of the Solos also carry MIRVs.

Damn. Those Solos could try the same gambit with their MIRVs that we had used. We had warning now and could use decoy dust to confuse their missiles, but I needed no EI to tell me how slim our chances were. At least the Solos couldn't coordinate during inversion or come out of it simultaneously, especially not with us harrying them. It meant they could hit one another instead of us when they launched their MIRVs. The question was: were they willing to kill each other to kill us?

I didn't want to find out. We had to destroy them before they had a chance to try. As Redstar and Goldstar closed on two of the Solos, Blackstar showed me a drone on an intercept course.

Get him, I thought.

Firing.

Mag-shields protected the drone, magnetic fields that deflected charged particles. No beam was perfectly neutral, but most of my shot reached its target. Where it hit the drone, the annihilations created pion showers, which started other devastatingly high energy processes, giving birth to particles and radiation that tore through the fusion engines, weapons bays, inversion engines, the generators powering the antimatter containment fields—

—and the drone disappeared in a silent burst of radiation and exploding debris. Part of it vanished with the eerie sucked away effect created when real matter collapsed into the complex space within a fuel containment bottle.

Warning: Blackstar thought. Greenstar detected.

Taas fired at a Solo bearing down on him. Blackstar highlighted his shot on my display, red for a tau missile. The miniature, volatile starship streaked out at the Solo. Jags couldn't carry many of the bulky taus; Taas had just used a fourth of his supply—

—lost a fourth of his supply. The Solo caught it with an Annihilator. The tau exploded close enough to destroy the Solo, but the ship remained whole, thrown into stasis by its EI. It sped away from Taas and toward me like a rigid body in frictionless motion. Then the Solo dropped out of stasis—and I gasped as terror punctured my mind.

Blocking, Blackstar thought.

Although the fear receded, it didn't vanish; with my boosted concentration so focused on the Solo, I couldn't shut out the pilot's reaction. He was so scared, so young, barely more than a boy, one who had never expected combat on this simple assignment

. . .I never wanted to fly a Solo, never wanted to be near one. How could I have believed it would make my dreams reality, lift me up—I'm paying for that dream—

Blackstar, block! Tears ran down my face, the tears of my enemy. The block psicon flashed futilely in my mind, over and over.

Firing, Blackstar thought.

My Annihilator caught the Solo point-blank and detonated it into oblivion. I gasped as the boy's death scream vibrated in my mind.

Blackstar. I drew in a sobbing breath. Disconnect my emotive centers.

Disconnected.

The part of my brain that cried in protest against the killing was suddenly locked in a glass-walled prison, its protests muted, unable to stop me from doing what had to be done. After the battle, if I survived, having used the disconnect would leave me feeling as if it had parched my soul, but without it, I couldn't function.

Red and Gold have been detected. Blackstar flashed images of Helda and Rex engaging two drones and a Solo. Another three drones were on intercept courses with us.

Evasive pattern two, I thought.

Blackstar fired the maneuvering rockets, using "cold" thrust from the fusion engines, changing course every second or less. The cocoon protected me against lesser accelerations, and Blackstar snapped us into stasis during lethal forces.

My Annihilator exploded one of the drones in a violent flash of radiation. An Annihilator shot from another drone stabbed through space where I had been an instant before. Robot ships had no need of stasis to keep a pilot alive, which meant they were more maneuverable than Jags. But their EI brains limited their strategy. A mature, well developed EI came close to human reasoning power, but it wasn't enough. Blackstar and I had worked together for over two decades, a synthesis that had evolved beyond what any EI or human could do alone.

My Jag hurtled past the third drone, and I caught it with an Annihilator. As the drone exploded, Blackstar showed me another Solo. It was thousands of kilometers away, running stealth, hiding in a shroud as it hurtled toward me. Even without the warning, I would have known it was there. I felt the pilot. He was a taskmaker, part Aristo, the same as Jaibriol's guards. I couldn't hit his ship with my Annihilator; the beam had no fuel left. A Jag could only carry so much antimatter, and a good portion of that went to our positron fuel.

Switch to Impactor, I thought.

The Solo came at me like a knight in a stealth jousting tournament. As we hurtled past each other, I fired the Impactor, a stream of clusters that fused on impact like little H-bombs. The Solo was veering in its own evasion pattern, however, and releasing clouds of smart dust that confused my tracking systems. My shot missed, stabbing uselessly into space. The Solo winged my mag-shields with his Annihilator, and particles spiraled madly off into space. Stats said I had been in stasis several times. Mercifully, so far my Jag hadn't sustained damage.

Meanwhile, the unrelenting clusters from my Impactor shot came around and went after the Solo. His decoy dust countered, some of it igniting the bomblets. As we hurtled away, my Jag released its own cloud of decoy dust that spread behind us in a cone, leaving a wake of explosions.

Gold hit, Blackstar thought.

Gold, report, I thought.

Lost mag-shields and Annihilators, Helda answered.

I needed only one look at her display. It was lit up with alarms like a holiday decoration. Helda, get out of here. Go back to headquarters and report. Rex, cover her.

Got it, Rex thought.

Green hit, Blackstar thought.

Taas? It looked like he had taken less damage than Helda had taken.

I'm fine, he thought—and punctuated it with a hit on a drone. In one flashing detonation, it became a note in the history files.

Solo approaching to port, Blackstar warned.

I snapped my attention to the Solo. Impactor, firing pattern K. Release decoy dust.

This new Solo evaded my shot. Its pilot fired his Impactor, but instead of targeting my Jag, he aimed to my port side—and nearly hit us as my ship jumped to almost that exact position.

Damn! This pilot was good. Evasive pattern Q!

Die, sweet Jagernaut.

The thought from the Solo's pilot hit me like a weapon. No telepath sent it, no one remotely resembling a telepath. But it formed with such single-minded intensity, I had no choice but receive it in my boosted state. It blanketed me with suffocating, choking scorn, and a lust so intense I reeled.

Die, sweet Jagernaut. Die. Slowly. In terrible pain.

The masters had come. This pilot was an Aristo warrior.

Fire Impactor! I struggled to free myself from the Aristo's concentration. I couldn't do it. The only way would be to disengage my brain from Blackstar, which was suicide.

The Solo veered in his evasive pattern, and I only winged his ship. Several of my Impactor clusters exploded on impact, but the Solo remained secure in stasis.

A second Solo suddenly registered on my detectors, matching velocity with my Jag as adeptly as the first. Its pilot's "voice" came to me: Die, Jagernaut.

—I was falling, falling, falling into a cavity, a dark hole, caught, trapped—

Blocking, Blackstar thought.

I gasped as my sense of falling receded. Fire, Impac—

As I came out of stasis, the Jag bucked, ramming my shoulder into the cushioned exoskeleton. Alarms blared in the cockpit and flashed on my mindscape.

We took a hit from the first Solo, Blackstar thought. It destroyed our starboard Impactor.

Sweet Jagernaut. The thought slid across my mind like an oily caress. You're mine.

The second Aristo him, hungering: Mine.

And then, gods almighty, a third thought penetrated: Die, little Jagernaut—and a third Solo materialized, firing out of a stealth approach even Blackstar hadn't detected.

I shouted a desperate thought at Blackstar. Evade!

The Jag shuddered violently as alarms blared. Hit to starboard, Blackstar thought. Annihilators no longer functional.

Fire taus, I thought.

My taus surged out of their cannon maws, jumping in and out of stasis as they streaked toward the Aristo ships. The first Solo destroyed the tau I sent after it. The second Solo took off with the tau in pursuit. My third tau found its target—and the Solo detonated in a fierce blast.

Anger from one of the first Solo pilot blasted my mind. Die, Jagernaut! In agony.

—and the second Solo jumped out of inversion, blasting the area with high energy exhaust that could demolish my Jag—

—and that second Solo exploded in a flash of radiation.

Got him! Rex thought. I'll—

Red hit, Blackstar thought.

REX! Stats for his Jag reeled through my mind: shields down to 8 percent, hull cohesion 4 percent. His antimatter containment fields teetered on the brink of collapse.

Fury at the Aristos burst over me, cold and icy. Fire tau, I thought. Get the bastard.

But even as my last cannon discharged, the Solo that had hit Rex also fired a tau. It matched velocity with my tau, caught it—and inverted. The two missiles reappeared to starboard and detonated together, their explosion blanked from my mind as Blackstar threw me into stasis.

Drones to port, Blackstar thought—and I was fleeing two drones, their Impactor fire crossing in space where I had been a second earlier. They hit each other instead and both exploded. I was nauseous from being clapped in and out of stasis. My node was trying to compensate by spurring my traumatized brain to release endorphins, but it wasn't enough.

Warning. Blackstar showed me a Solo accelerating toward the sun, up to relativistic speeds.

Catch it, I thought, and we leapt desperately after the Solo. I had no taus, no Annihilators, nothing. If I had to, I would ram the Jag down its—

Goldstar appeared so fast that if it hadn't been for Blackstar, I wouldn't have understood what happened. I knew only that the Solo exploded as if it had been slammed by an invisible cannon shooting straight at its nose. Blackstar told me the rest; Helda had read the position of the Solo straight from my mind—and jumped out of inversion directly in front of it with a precision impossible except for a ship in a Jag link. She came out at 80 percent of light speed, blasting the Solo with her exhaust, and before the Trader even finished exploding, she was gone.

It was damn near suicide. Had her calculations been off by even a few meters, she would have come out on top of the Solo, destroying herself as well as it. A miscalculation in the other direction and she would have destroyed either my ship or what little remained of Rex's Jag.

I had time neither to curse at her for disobeying orders nor to voice my rush of gratitude. The Jag lurched sickeningly, throwing me against the inside of the exoskeleton.

Hit to starboard, Blackstar thought.

Stats told it all: that shot had nearly finished us. One more hit, and we would be no more than radiation and expanding gas.

Soz. Rex's though came to my mind, dim but clear.

He was alive! Alive. I fought the urge to laugh, then to cry.

Suddenly Blackstar ignited the thrusters—and we leapt away from an Annihilator beam the instant before a Solo fired at us.

Lucky Jagernaut. The thought penetrated my mind, taunting, hungry, sliding like oil as the Solo hurtled away from us.

I drew in a ragged breath. It wasn't the first time Blackstar had anticipated a shot from an enemy ship. The Traders knew our weakness, that during combat our boosted state made our minds vulnerable. They played it to the hilt, taunting, baiting, jabbing at us. But any pilot who concentrated too hard on a boosted Jagernaut, particularly one with my experience and stratospheric Kyle rating, took that chance that his link would work in reverse, too. Through it, Blackstar had picked up the Aristo's more guarded thoughts—including his intent to fire.

Sweat dripped down my temples. Gold, get back to headquarters. You hear me, Helda? NOW. No more heroics. You may be the only one who can get in a report.

I'm gone, Helda thought.

The Traders who had fired on Blackstar were both out of range. Not that it mattered. I had nothing to shoot them with. As far as my scans could determine, those two were the last enemy ships. The drone was on intercept with Taas, and the Solo was accelerating toward the sun.

Based on its trajectory, Blackstar thought, I calculate the Solo will invert and jump back into the battle almost on top of Redstar.

Redstar. Rex's Jag—which was drifting helplessly in space.

Intercept it, I thought. Catch that slime scum.

Blackstar threw me into stasis. Again. Again. I was sick with the lurching jumps, my mind dizzy, my throat dry. A prong clicked down from my helmet, and water ran into my mouth.

We have no weapons, Blackstar thought.

Pump our positron fuel into an Annihilator, I thought.

The Annihilators are no longer functional.

Then dump the blasted positrons into anything that will hold them. Load it into a tau cannon.

I can use a fuel bottle. But it won't stay together for long.

It won't need to.

Solo inverting.

Follow it.

Then I dropped my mental blocks. I opened my mind to the Solo pilot in as if I were the drain in a barrel filled with acid. He poured into my mind like a caustic whirlpool: Pain, Jagernaut. Pain and fear and terror. Die—

We inverted, and Blackstar remained locked to the Solo through my link with its pilot. We screamed silently through imaginary space, chasing the Solo as it came around and headed to Tams.

Reinvert, I thought.

We jumped out a split second earlier then the Solo, but I couldn't maneuver into position to use my exhaust. As the Solo reinverted, I thought, Fire that fuel bottle into the maw of its tau cannon. Then get us the hell out of here.

In the same instant that my makeshift missile plunged into the Solo's cannon maw, the Solo fired a tau missile. My antimatter fuel bottle and its tau smashed into each other—and Solo vanished in a furious blast of radiation.

Ten drones approaching from dayside of Tams, Blackstar thought.

TEN? Gods almighty. How long until they're within firing range?

Four minutes. Only three minutes remain until the air in Rex Blackstone's emergency tanks will be exhausted.

I gulped in a breath. Green, report.

The drone that was chasing me stopped droning, he thought.

Taas, you have to get that EI to the rebels. You have four minutes to get down, make the drop, and get out.

Got it, Taas said.

Soz, don't be a fool. Rex's thought came dimly. You go in. Have Green cover you.

I nudged closer to Rex's ship, maneuvering as carefully as my Jag could manage, until we almost touched. Release accordion, I thought. Connect to Red.

Released, Blackstar answered.

Damn it, Soz, Rex thought. Tams is more important than one aging Jagernaut. Go in with Taas. He can't do it alone.

You should have more faith in him.

The accordion unfolded from my airlock. As it clanked onto Rex's Jag, Blackstar thought, Air pressure in Red at zero atmosphere. I'm sealing your space suit. One point two minutes of air remain in Blackstone's suit tanks.

Rex, get into the accordion, I thought.

I can't move, Rex answered.

Blackstar, open Redstar. Then release me.

Done.

As the exoskeleton snapped away from my body, I squeezed out of my chair and the cockpit membrane, and literally threw myself across the cabin. Blackstar opened both the inner and outer airlock doors. I shot past them and into the accordion bridge that stretched to Rex's Jag like a tunnel. The airlock to his Jag was wide open. I hurtled into Red—and into chaos.

Equipment floated everywhere, knocking past me. A section of the inner hull had buckled inward. Rex struggling to pull himself out of the pilot's seat, which had gone dead, its exoskeleton jammed around his body. He grabbed my arms, and with both of us working we dragged him out. Even free of the chair, his legs trailed uselessly behind him. I tried to contact him with my suit radio, but it didn't work.

Blackstar spoke. "Red has no more air in his suit tanks or emergency reserve."

I could see Rex's face through his helmet, see him gasping. He propelled himself through the ship and into the accordion like a human missile. He hurtled into the airlock of my Jag with me close behind. As Blackstar closed the outer door, Rex hit a side wall of the airlock and went limp.

"Blackstar, air." I grabbed Rex, clawing at his spacesuit. The two of us careened out of the airlock and into the cabin, tumbling out of control.

Rex's helmet came off in my hands. As we butted up against a bulkhead, I yanked off my own helmet. I anchored our bodies by wrapping my legs around the med cradle unfolding from the hull. Grabbing Rex's head, I pinched his nose and breathed into his mouth, a big breath for his big lungs. Breathe in. Out. In. Out. Rex, breathe. Gods, breathe.

"The approaching drones will be within firing range in forty-five seconds," Blackstar said.

In. Out—

Rex gasped in a huge, shuddering breath. As I let go of his nose, his eyes opened and he looked up at me, his face pale in the cold light of the cabin.

"Take care of Rex." Even as I spoke, the medcradle was enveloping him in its embrace.

"Thirty-two seconds until drones are within range," Blackstar said. "They have a lock on us."

I dove into the cockpit and yanked myself into the pilot's seat. The instant I plugged into the ship, I blasted out a thought: Taas pull out. Now!

No answer.

Drones firing, Blackstar thought.

Acceleration slammed me back—

Gasping, I reeled with the aftershock of having been in stasis for too long. Fixing the quantum state of a human being for that much time could be disastrous; when it relaxed, it had to respond to the forces in its surroundings. If they had changed too much, catastrophic fluctuations of the readjusting system could tear a person apart on the atomic level. My molecules managed to stay together, but I felt like hell. My vision was so bleared, I couldn't read my controls, but the mindscape told me what I needed to know; Blackstar had jumped into inversion in one step, keeping us in stasis the entire time.

Greenstar, report, I thought. Taas?

No answer.

I can't get a fix on Green, Blackstar thought.

Gold?

Nothing there, either, Blackstar answered.

No! Neither Helda nor Taas would willingly drop out of the link. Helda might have landed, but given the damage to her ship, it was more likely it had collapsed.

How is Rex? I asked.

His life functions are ceasing.

Help him!

He needs more help than I can provide.

NO! Had I succeeded in doing nothing with this desperation run except kill my squad? Not after all we had been through together. I couldn't bear it.

Blackstar, put us back into stasis. For Rex, neither time dilation nor any other relativistic effect made one whit of difference. It mattered only how long he was trapped here on the Jag. Don't bring us out until we get to a hospital than can save him.

Neither you nor Commander Blackstone may survive another—

Does he have any chance of surviving if you don't put him in stasis?

No. But you do.

Put us in stasis. Then break every transit-time record ever made getting to the hospital.

That was my final thought.

VII
Aftermath

I threw up when we came out of stasis.

Sterilizers in my spacesuit whirred, cleaning the mess. We hurtled into the Dieshan system, plowing through its layers of security by blasting out my clearances. I brought the Jag down on the hospital roof in the middle of the night in a glare of flood lamps. Rex lay in the medcradle, its huge arms buffering him while intravenous threads trailed into his limbs through sockets in his space suit.

As I opened the airlock, people ran across the roof. Within seconds they were loading Rex into an air-stretcher. I went with them, jogging by the stretcher while doctors tried to take readings on me.

It all happened too fast. We were running down a white corridor toward Surgery; then I was in a circular room with white walls, surrounded by meds in white uniforms. One tried to take me into another room. When he wouldn't let go, I rolled him over my hip, and he hit the ground with a resounding thump, his hospital jumpsuit ripping along the seams. Three other meds, two women and a man, grabbed my arms. The one I had thrown climbed to his feet, and a third medwoman tried to press an air syringe against my arm.

"Stop it," I yanked my arm away from her syringe. I had to know what happened to Rex.

"Primary Valdoria, please." The woman with the syringe brushed disarrayed grey curls out of her eyes. "You need medical atten—"

"Put that damned syringe down," I said. "Or I'll have you thrown into prison for attacking an Imperial heir."

The woman blanched and lowered her arm. But that was as far as she relented. When the other meds tried taking me to a chair, I swore at them.

"Sit," the syringe-wielding woman told me. "Relax."

Was she crazy? Rex was dying and this madwoman wanted me to relax? I tried to twist away from the meds, but they kept hold of me.

"Soz." A hand came down heavy on my shoulder.

I turned in the grip of the meds and looked up.

Helda.

I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Saints above and almighty. I hadn't killed them all.

"Did you report?" I asked. I wanted to shed tears, but I couldn't do that in front of these people.

"Ya." She hesitated. "Taas?"

"He didn't respond when I told him to pull out."

"Damn." She exhaled. "I am sorry."

Softly I said, "So am I." Sorry didn't begin to say it.

Helda indicated a curving white sofa against the curving white wall. "You wait with me?"

I nodded, and jerked my arms away from the meds, who finally let go, apparently trusting Helda to keep me from disturbing the peace. So she and I sat on the sofa.

Then we waited.

And waited.

We sat for eight hours. Someone asked if I wanted to watch Rex's operations on a holoscreen. I said no. I didn't think I could bear it. Later someone asked me questions, taking my report. Then they went away. During all those long hours I kept reliving the battle, the moments when I gave Taas his orders, Helda hers. Or Rex. I kept thinking of other scenarios, other commands I could have issued that might have changed the way it ended, given them and Tams a chance to live.

Finally I tried to turn off my mind. But I could still hear the dying scream of that child-pilot in the Solo. Overlaid on his death were my memories of the Aristo warlords who had nearly destroyed us, their lust for my death like a dirty taste in my mouth I could never clean out, never if I tried for a thousand years, no more than I had been able to clean off the crust of that hatred from any other battle I had fought over the last quarter of a century.

About an hour after dawn I finally dozed off. My head fell back against the sofa, but I caught myself and sat up. Then I let it fall back again and closed my eyes.

"Do you want some coffee?" a voice asked.

My eyes snapped open. I knew that voice.

"Primary Valdoria? I brought some coff—"

"Taas!" I jumped to my feet.

Taas grinned and held out a plastic cup filled with that god-awful drink the Allieds had inflicted on our import shops. He was still wearing his space suit. I grabbed him a hug, followed by Helda who nearly knocked him over. His coffee splattered all over the floor.

"Hey." His voice came out muffled against Helda's bosom. "I can't breathe."

She let him go. "It is no good if you die from suffocation now, heh? Not after coming back from the dead."

He blinked. "The dead?"

I laughed unsteadily. "I thought you were dead when you dropped out of the link."

"I got hit by a drone," Taas said. "It knocked me out of our link."

I stared at him. The only way to knock him out would have been to damage Greenstar so seriously, it couldn't access the Kyle-Mesh. "You made it back here with a crippled computer?"

"It wasn't so bad," Taas said. "I just had to do a few calculations in my head."

In his head? "You must have one incredible brain." But I had known that when I picked him for the squad. "Did you get the EI through to Tams?"

"I did the drop," he said. "I don't know if it helped. I haven't heard any reports yet."

"Soz." Helda touched my arm.

I glanced at her, and she nodded toward the door. I turned to see a doctor approaching. He stopped in front of me. "Primary Valdoria?"

"Yes?" I asked.

"We're done in surgery."

"And?" Tell me he'll live. Tell me he'll be all right.

The doctor pushed his hand through his hair. "He had bruises, broken bones, internal bleeding. None of that was too serious."

But? I felt it hanging in the air. "What about his legs?"

"The problem isn't his legs," the doctor said. "It was the psiphon socket implanted in the lumbar region of his spine. It ripped out of his body, partially transecting his descending neural fibers between the cervical and lumber enlargements."

"Tell me so I can understand."

"The implant cut his spinal cord."

"You can fix it, can't you?"

"Normally we can make even neural cells regenerate by tricking them into thinking they're in an embryonic state." The doctor spoke quietly. "It didn't take with him. Then we tried three operations to link the severed portions with bio-optics. His body rejected them."

This wasn't what I wanted to hear. "But you can fix the damage, right? As soon as he starts responding to treatment?"

He hesitated. "Normally I would say yes. Unfortunately a biomech system as extensive as what you carry in your bodies can lead to unexpected side effects. Secondary Blackstone has had so many injuries to his nervous system already, he's developed a toxic reaction to some of the drugs we use to promote regeneration. If we try anything more with his web, his body may reject the entire system."

I stared at him. "What are you telling me?"

A painful compassion darkened his eyes. "Secondary Blackstone is paralyzed from the waist down. He will probably never regain function of his legs."

"No." It couldn't be. They wanted me to believe Rex had been crippled the day before he resigned? No, it couldn't be.

Helda spoke softly. "When can we see him?"

"He's sleeping now," the doctor said. "We'll let you know as soon as he can have visitors." He glanced back at me. "Primary—"

I knew what was coming. Solicitude. I couldn't bear that. I regarded him implacably. "What?"

"I'm told your ship's log indicates you haven't slept in over fifty hours." He paused. "Preliminary scans indicate you have two broken ribs, multiple bruises, and internal tissue damage from being in stasis too long. You need medical care and sleep."

Sleep? I was too agitated even to sit down. "I'm fine."

"Ma'am, you aren't fine. You're about to collapse." When I started to object, he held up his hand. "We can give you a bed here."

I scowled. "I don't want a bed."

"It would be in your best interest."

A vivid picture from his mind intruded into my thoughts, an image of how I looked to him, like an injured rockdeer, a wild, beautiful animal growling while he tried to coax her to come near enough so he could heal her wounds. The image was so startling I just stood blinking at him. As the Allieds would say, it took the proverbial wind out of my proverbial sails, which was a dumb metaphor given that he saw me as a rockdeer and not a ship.

Maybe I was more exhausted than I thought, too tired even to form coherent thoughts.

"All right," I said. "I'll rest. For a little bit."

* * *

The curtains cut out the harsh Dieshan sun, letting in just enough light to keep the room dimly lit. I lay in the pleasing warmth, rising out of sleep, wondering why I felt so sore.

Then I remembered.

It was a bonecrusher. When I slept, my mind relaxed its barriers, sometimes enough to let me pick up things that I blocked when I was awake. At times my dreams even sampled possible futures, the closest I ever came to precognition. The more intense the feelings of the people involved—and the closer I was to them—the more vivid the dream. But all too often intense feelings accompanied misfortune. I hated those dreams. Instead of waking up refreshed, I opened my eyes into misery, knowing that I or someone I loved was now or soon to be hurt. I called the dreams bonecrushers because it felt like they crushed me. Today I was waking up into one.

As my mind focused, I realized someone was in the room, a presence like an iron blanket on my mind. I turned over to look.

He stood by the bed, a giant man over two meters tall with musculature too heavy to have evolved on a standard gravity world. He looked more metal than human. His skin glinted as if it were gold. Although his eyes were open, inner lids covered them like gold shields, opaque to the world. I knew he could see through them, but to everyone else his eyes were blank spaces. His face would have been handsome if it hadn't been so hard, but nothing softened that visage. He wore a plain uniform, beige trousers and a pullover with no markings, nothing to indicate his identity—except for a gold band on each upper arm wider even than the one that denoted my rank of Primary.

The Imperator had come to see me.

I sat up, wincing as pain shot through my torso. Then I saluted, clenching my hands into fists and crossing them at the wrists, right over left, as I raised them to him.

Kurj inclined his head. Even after so many years, I found it hard to believe we were related. Although we had the same mother, we bore little resemblance to each other; Kurj looked like our grandfather and I like our grandmother. His coloring came from genetic adaptations our grandfather's ancestors had made when they colonized a world with a too-bright sun. The metallic sheen of his skin and hair reflected sunlight, and the inner lids protected his eyes. He was as much machine as human, with biomech even more extensive than mine. His appearance had become a symbol, the Fist of Skolia, the case-hardened emperor with no mortal softness the Traders could exploit.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"All right." I rubbed the restrainer that held my ribs. I had no recollection of anyone putting it there. I had been so keyed up, the doctors had knocked me out with some potion in an air syringe.

Beyond Kurj, the rainbows of a cyberlock rippled on the walls, ceiling, and floor, isolating us within its field. Their colors were more intense than those I had seen around Jaibriol's mansion on Delos. These gave a different warning: Kurj's lock was set to kill.

"The doctors told me about Rex Blackstone," he said.

My attention snapped back to him. "Have you seen him?"

"He's still asleep."

I wanted to ask what else he knew, but I couldn't. Faced with Kurj's impassive metal face, my words dried up and blew away.

So instead I said, "Did Taas's EI drop help?"

"Yes." That one simple word said so much. "By the time our backup units arrived, Qox's flags had flooded the planet. We couldn't get anyone else out alive. But we were able to protect the refugee ships that had escaped and were fleeing the system."

I dreaded the words he hadn't said. "How many died?"

His words dropped like stones. "Two thirds of the population."

Two thirds. Of six hundred million. I wondered what Jaibriol thought of his father now.

"I've also read your report on the Aristo," Kurj said.

That was all. I've read your report. So he knew the truth. Ur Qox had an heir. The devil had reproduced himself.

No wonder the Emperor had never divorced his wife. She had to know her "son" was another woman's child. She probably thought Qox had a Highton mistress. Had he secluded his wife and then shown up with the baby? If she denied Jaibriol, it would have put the Highton Heir under a scrutiny Qox had to avoid. I was surprised he hadn't murdered the Empress. Was Taas right, that Qox actually loved his wife? Or did he just doubt he could get away with killing her? He must have made a devil's bargain with her: keep her silence and she kept her title.

In the past, I had tried to convince myself that the among Aristos, the women were their gentle side. They disdained the military, which meant we rarely had contact with them. But my three weeks on Tarque's Estate had cured me of my notions. The Aristos had no gentle side. The women were as brutal as the men. Nothing, not size, shape, sex, or anything else made a whit of difference.

Kurj was watching me. "The Delos authorities sent us a report about your activities in the Highton's mansion." He raised his eyebrow at me. "Your methods weren't exactly subtle."

"Is that a reprimand, sir?"

"No."

That was no surprise. Kurj had never had much use for subtlety.

"I've arranged for Blackstar squad to receive commendations," Kurj said. "We will broadcast it on the news holos."

So. Make us heroes. I supposed it made sense. It gave ISC a better image. I felt about as heroic as a slug.

Unbidden, Kurj's thought entered my mind. Every time you fly a mission, you risk your lives. You know that. Your squad knows. Blackstone knows.

Yes, sir. I kept the rest of my thoughts hidden. What else could I say? Knowing Rex was aware of the dangers didn't help.

"Soz." Kurj's voice gentled. "You deserve the commendations."

A light glowed one of his wrist gauntlets, which covered his lower arm and part of his hand. When he touched the pager, a man's voice came into the room. "A medwoman is here to see you, sir. Her codes cleared security."

"Send her in," Kurj said.

The cyberlock field dimmed, leaving an opening across the room. The wall separated into an oval that stretched from floor to ceiling. Two of Kurj's bodyguards stepped through, both of them Jagernauts. A woman appeared next, a girl really. She walked behind them, her face flushed as she stared at the floor. She was a beauty, with a silky mane of gold hair to her waist. Curls floated around her breathtaking face, which was soft and sweet, golden. She looked like a delicate, younger version of my mother. She didn't have my mother's vibrant quality, though, that glowing self-confidence that drew people like pale moths seeking a night lamp. This girl was more fragile.

Kurj nodded to his guards. "You may go."

After the Jagernauts left, the wall closed and the cyberlock rippled into place, trapping the girl with us. Fear closed around me like glass enclosing an insect. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe—

Block, I thought, and the fear receded. The girl stayed riveted in place, staring at the floor. She couldn't even acknowledge Kurj, an omission that made her a criminal, punishable by prison. Hell, Kurj could give her any sentence he wanted, including execution. No one was going to argue with him. But I had a feeling that wasn't what he had in mind for her at all.

He regarded the girl. "Come here."

At first she didn't move. Then she took a breath and walked forward. She stopped in front of him and knelt, first on one knee, and when he didn't give her permission to rise, on both knees. Her shoulders trembled, making the lace neckline of her white dress slip forward so that her breasts were visible to anyone above the level of her shoulders.

For a while Kurj stood looking at her. Finally he said, "You're the girl I saw tending children in the nursery?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"What is your name?"

"Charissa Deirdre."

"You have a message for me?"

"Yes, sir." Her voice was soft.

"What is it?"

"Your guard—the biggest one. He said you gave orders. That—I was to inform y-you when—" She took a breath. "When the broadcast you wanted to watch was ready to begin."

"Is it?" Kurj asked.

"Yes. It—it is."

What was the bloody blazes Kurj doing? If he wanted to watch some news program, all he had to do was set my room console to activate when it was about to start. Why order a girl who worked in the nursery to tell him? No, stupid question. I knew why. Some men asked women who interested them to dinner. Kurj had other methods.

"Get up," Kurj said. His voice was even gentle. But it was still a command.

The girl stood, her eyes averted. She was young enough to be his great-granddaughter. Although he looked a fit and muscled forty, he was ninety. He towered over her; the top of her head barely reached the center of his massive chest.

"Look at me," he said.

She raised her large eyes, brown flecked with gold. Bright spots of color showed on her cheeks. Kurj cupped his hand under her chin, stroking her cheek with his thumb. His grip was so large that his fingers covered her right ear lobe and his thumb brushed her left lobe. With his other hand, he touched the comm mesh on his wrist gauntlet.

The voice of his guard came out of the mesh. "Ko, here."

"The girl is ready to leave," Kurj said.

The cyberlock opened and the two Jagernauts reappeared. Kurj ignored them, his gaze on Charissa. She stared at him like a shyback gazelle mesmerized by a hunter's light. Bending his head, he held her chin and kissed her, a long kiss, taking his time. Then he straightened up and glanced at the Jagernauts. "Have her taken to the palace."

"Yes, sir," the larger guard said.

Charissa went with them quietly, looking at neither. When she was gone, I sat on the bed with my fists clenched under the blanket.

Kurj turned back to me. After a moment he said, "You disapprove?"

"You're an empath. You must have felt how scared she was."

He shrugged. "Perhaps."

Perhaps? How could he have stood there, submerged in her fear, and not react?

And who the hell was I to judge him? I had killed a terrified pilot who was barely more than a child, purposely blocking off my emotional responses so I could destroy his ship.

"If you hadn't killed him," Kurj said, "he would have killed you."

I thought of the Aristos. "So we become what we fight."

"No. We survive."

My voice snapped out. "And survival means raping whoever catches your fancy?"

Kurj's jaw stiffened. "You overstep yourself."

That one. Tarque's image seared my mind. He had made me kneel in front of him and praise him with every noxious title he could think of, promising respite from the pain if I did what he wanted.

Watching me, Kurj raked his hand over his short hair. Then he went to the window and pulled aside the curtains, letting painfully bright sunlight into the room. He stood in its swath, glinting in the glassy sunlight, while he stared out at the casecrete and chrome grounds of the ISC hospital.

Then he said, "You compare me to a Highton?"

I just shook my head. I couldn't talk to him about Tarque.

He turned around. "Did it ever occur to you that I need companionship?"

I stared at him. I didn't know what surprised me more, his admission of loneliness or his method of alleviating it. What kind of companion would Charissa make if she was so traumatized she could barely breathe when she was in the same room with him?

"You want me to court her," Kurj said. "'Woo' her. Coax her." His voice hardened. "I bow to no one. Not Ur Qox, not the Allied President, and not any woman."

Is that how you see love? I thought. As a loss of control? Or are you punishing her for looking like the one woman you most want, the one you can't have? But I didn't let those thoughts out where he could find them. It might be true that I spoke more openly to Kurj than almost anyone else alive. Even so, limits existed on what I could say—or think—in his presence.

Even after all the years I had known him, Kurj remained an enigma to me. He had plenty of good within him. Even kindness. He was a brilliant war leader who inspired fierce loyalty from his officers. But decades of battling the Traders had hardened him, until he could no longer express affection even to a gentle girl like Charissa. I had never found a way to resolve the darker side of this man I called brother.

Across the room, the VR-wall activated, speckled patterns swirling on its surface. A holo formed in front of it, a sleek black puma with red eyes. Its lips drew into a snarl, and its fangs glistened like daggers. Music swelled into the haunting melody of the Trader anthem.

So. Kurj had set the console to activate. He was watching the wall-screen, his arms crossed, his gaze intent on the emblem of his enemy. He had filed Charissa away in his mind and moved on. I couldn't put her out of my thoughts that easily. I kept seeing her frightened face, kept feeling her sinking sensation as she heard Kurj's words: Have her taken to the palace.

Block, I thought. The psicon sputtered in my mind, but the memory stayed strong. My blocker only muted other people's emotions. Deleting my memories was too dangerous; it could inadvertently wipe out other needed information as well.

In front of the screen, the puma stretched a paw forward, its claws extending in a fan of sharpened points as the Trader anthem swelled in a crescendo.

I spoke in a neutral voice. "Who is broadcasting this?"

Kurj continued to watch the puma. "We picked it up from the Traders."

"Emperor Qox is speaking?"

A muscle twitched in his cheek. "Yes."

We were probably getting the transmission even before many of the Trader worlds. To transmit off planet, Qox had to record the broadcast and send it via starship to wherever he wanted it heard. But once we picked it up, we could shoot it over the Kyle-Mesh instantaneously.

The broadcast had to be about Tams. Qox couldn't hide this time. Two hundred million witnesses had survived his latest attempt at genocide. Their testimony would show the lie of his.

The puma shimmered—and we were there, in a great circular hall. Far above our heads, the ceiling arched in a white dome. High-backed benches of white stone formed concentric rings, many rings, filling the room. Cushions softened the seats, pillows the color of blood. Aristos sat here. Ranks and ranks of Aristos. Hundreds. Thousands. They sat side by side, subunits in a machine, all in black, with glittering black hair and ruby eyes.

In the center of the hall, a pillar of crystal rose from the floor almost to the ceiling, refracting and splintering light into sparks of color. The puma crouched in the air behind the pillar. The animal twisted and swelled in size. Its back legs pulled out straight, its body came upright, front legs reached out like arms—and a lean man stood there, two meters high, three meters, four. When he finished morphing, he was five meters tall, sixteen feet, his head just below the domed ceiling. His Highton features were unmistakable, though nothing else made his face remarkable. What set him apart was his presence, an air of undisputed authority.

This was Ur Qox, Emperor of Eube.

The music stopped. Qox spoke in Highton with a powerful voice. "My people, I come before you tonight with great pride. Rejoice! We, the children of Eube, have been chosen. We have an honor never before known, the honor of living in the greatest civilization to grace the great, turning wheel of our galaxy. We shine where darkness once blanketed the stars."

For flaming sake. He went on and on, coming up with ever more grandiose tributes to his empire. He never mentioned Tams. Did he believe he could hide it? I wished he would finish the damn speech. Even seeing him so long after he had recorded it, I felt as if mites burrowed into my skin. Qox, the Hightons, all the Aristos—just their images were enough terrorize us, as if our minds recognized on a subliminal level what they could do to us.

"I come to you tonight with magnificent news," Qox said. "The constant threat we live with, the threat of enslavement by our malevolent enemies, has been dealt a great blow." His expression became firm, that of a leader struggling with righteous anger. "The latest victim of the ruthless Imperial forces is Tams Station, one of the Concord's most vulnerable members. Yesterday the Imperialate attacked the defenseless Tams with no provocation."

What the hell? In the "seat" next to me, Kurj stiffened. All around us, the Aristos clicked the ornate rings on their fingers, click, click, click, like a huge insect rattling with agitation.

Grief tinged Qox's voice. "I speak in great sorrow. Tams lost its population. Yes, my people, four hundred million innocent citizens died at the hands of Imperator Skolia."

I couldn't believe it. He was blaming us. Kurj watched with his shielded eyes, his face a metal mask. But I was an empath, one of his own blood. No matter how well he blocked his anger, I felt it.

Triumph washed over Qox's face. "But our gallant forces drove away the war-mongers! We saved two hundred million of our brave citizens."

I gritted my teeth. This was even worse than I expected.

Pride swelled in Qox's voice. "My people, I cannot take credit for the rescue at Tams. No, that credit goes to a hero like none other you have known, a man whose greatness has only begun to shine, a star rising in Tams' darkest hour." He motioned to someone out of range of the camera. For a dramatic moment he stood alone, waiting, his hand outstretched.

Then Jaibriol appeared at the podium.

Ah, Gods. I clamped a cover over my mind while inside I reeled.

Qox gazed out at the assembled aristocracy of his empire. "This man commanded the mission that saved Tams Station." He laid his hand on Jaibriol's arm. "I present to you Lord J'briol U'jjr Qox. My son. The Highton Heir."

"No," Kurj said.

A collective gasp rose from the Aristos, like a flock of birds startled from their roosting place, rising into the air with a flurry of motion. Their finger cymbals clicked wildly, click-click-click, click-click-click. Jaibriol hardly looked like the same man I had met on Delos. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. He stood next to his father like a dead statue, grim and silent.

Qox described why he had hidden his son's birth; Imperial assassins had been poised to murder the Highton Heir, but now the assassins were dead, killed in a fierce battle with brave Eubian soldiers who defended Jaibriol at great peril to their lives. He finished with another one of his grating tributes to the greatness of himself, his dynasty, the Hightons, and his empire. The entire time Jaibriol stood there, unsmiling, tall and broad-shouldered, the image of his revered ancestors, every bit the perfect hero, the extraordinarily handsome heir to the Qox dynasty. The Traders would worship him.

Mercifully, the broadcast ended and the hall dissolved into the reality of my hospital room. I sat in bed, too demoralized to speak.

"That was surreal," Kurj said. "He blames us for Tams."

"He can't get away with it," I said. "Two hundred million witnesses will say otherwise."

Maybe this son of his will die a miserable death in battle, Kurj thought.

Maybe. Such a loss would devastate Qox more than Kurj knew, destroying the meticulous plans of two generations of Emperors who sacrificed their godforsaken bloodlines so they could produce a Rhon heir. Qox wouldn't take that risk. Jaibriol would never see combat.

I wondered what the emperor would do if he knew the witnesses to his crimes at Tams existed because his son, the "star rising in Tams's darkest hour," had betrayed his father to an Imperial Heir.

* * *

Rex lay on his back with his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling in a deep, even rhythm. His face looked so thin. So pale. A gold sheet covered most of his body, up to his shoulders and head. The collar of his blue shirt was open at the neck, somehow giving him a vulnerable look, probably because I was used to seeing him in the intimidating leathers of a Jagernaut.

The floater bed stretched around a cushion of air, with a mesh of superconducting rings woven into the fabric to let the mattress respond to every move Rex made, easing his legs here, tightening under his back there. The floater also rocked slightly, as if it were a boat with waves lapping against its sides. Most empaths preferred a floater to nervoplex because its behavior felt inanimate rather than living.

I hesitated, unsure whether to stay or come back when he awoke. As I started to leave, though, a voice spoke behind me. "Soz?"

I turned around, glad to hear his voice, more than I knew how to say. "You're awake."

He watched me with a neutral expression. "Apparently."

"How do you feel?"

"Fine."

Rex, I thought. I'm sorry.

"For what?" he asked. "Saving my life?"

"For getting you—like—" I looked at the outline of his legs under the blankets. "Like this."

"Paralyzed," Rex said. "The word is paralyzed."

I flushed. "I'm sorry."

"Soz, don't." He pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes and the bed readjusted, trying to ease his tension. "Stop laying this guilt you think you have at my feet. I can't deal with it."

I started to speak, then realized what I was going to do and smiled instead.

"You think that's funny?" Rex asked.

"I was going to apologize for apologizing."

His face relaxed into a smile. "Please don't."

I sat on the bed, settling as the floater accommodated my weight. Then I took his hand. "You'll be all right. You just need time to readjust."

He curled his fingers around mine. "Soz—"

His look made me uneasy. "Yes?"

"I think we should cancel the marriage."

"You don't mean—"

"Don't tell me I don't mean it."

"I don't care if your legs don't move."

"I do."

We can deal with this, I thought.

He kept his mental doors closed. "Whenever I see you—I can't, Soz."

Don't shut me out.

His grip on my hand tightened. Don't you understand?

No! I caught my lower lip with my teeth. You swore you wouldn't walk out on me.

"Walk out?" he demanded. "I can't even walk across the room."

"That doesn't make me love you any less."

He gritted his teeth. "Soz, I can't do the husband thing."

"That could change."

"And if it doesn't?"

"I don't care."

He gave me an incredulous look. "You have the body and drives of a young woman. You will when I'm a doddering old man." A muscle in his face twitched. "I refuse to watch you take lovers."

I stared at him. "You know me better than that!"

"You're a human being. Not a saint."

That certainly wouldn't get an argument from me. But he was wrong about the lovers. "I would never turn from you."

"Damn it, Soz. Will you listen?" He pushed up on his elbow. "I won't be the Imperator's crippled husband."

"I'm not the Imperator."

"It's you who will be Imperator. You need a consort worthy of that position."

"Don't tell me that." I struggled to keep my voice calm. "Even if I do become Imperator someday, it won't make a whit of difference. It doesn't matter to me."

"It matters to me."

Rex. We can work through it.

He lay down and stared at the ceiling. Then, finally, he opened his mind, opened it wide. I felt what it was like for him to lie there helpless, to remember what we had been, to imagine our life now. I felt his anger, his frustration, his pain at the sight of me. I was like a laser cutting him into pieces. I couldn't wish that on any human being, most of all not the man I loved.

"Good-bye, Sauscony," he said.

My voice caught. "Good-bye."

I left his room blindly, unable to see because of the blurring in my eyes.

* * *

Open space filled the Imperator's huge office. The room had no rugs, no ornaments, almost no furniture. Three of its walls were neither glass nor metal, but a surface intermediate between the two. They glowed with gold silhouettes of desert scenes from our grandfather's home world. Fifty-five years ago, this had been our grandfather's office. That was before Kurj—accidentally or not—killed him.

I wondered how our mother dealt with it, knowing her firstborn son had killed her father. The Assembly had ruled it an accident. In reading the transcripts of their deliberations, I was never sure whether they came to that conclusion because they believed it or because they feared Kurj's power. This much was clear: the passions ripping apart my family—my grandfather's death, my mother's terrified flight from Kurj, her secret marriage to my father—threatened the survival of the Imperialate. If the Rhon destroyed itself, the Kyle-Mesh would collapse, and without it, Skolia would fall to the Trader's superior military like eggs dropping on the ground. The Assembly did what they felt necessary to ensure the survival of the tempestuous family that kept the mesh alive.

My mother never spoke about her father's death. Had Kurj murdered him? Perhaps only he knew the truth. However my mother felt about it, she loved Kurj. Gods only knew why, but she did.

Kurj sat watching me from his chair. His desk stretched the length of the room, a thick sheet of glass with controls imbedded in its surface and in the columns that supported it. The wall behind him was a window as thick as a fist, its glass polarized to mute the biting glare of the Dieshan sun. The office took up the top floor of a reflective tower in the metropolis of Headquarters City. Beyond the window, a landscape of rectangles stretched out, all towers and soaring buildings, glass and steel and Luminex. A flyer appeared from behind a nearby tower, banking in a smooth arc. Sunlight reflected off its glossy black body. A silver insignia glittered on its nose with the letters ISC inscribed inside a triangle, which was inscribed inside an exploding sun.

The window had no drapes. Kurj used it as a tool. He set its polarization to mute the glare, but only enough so it wasn't blinding. I stood at attention in front of his desk trying not to squint. Even with my enhanced optic nerves, my eyes refused to focus on both the brilliant cityscape outside and Kurj's shadowed face. He was a dark silhouette, his face unreadable.

"You'll stay on the world Forshires Hold," Kurj was saying. "I want you to train JMI cadets."

I didn't want these new orders. I had no desire to train cadets at Jacob's Military Institute. "Permission to speak, sir?"

"Go ahead."

"I'd like to take Blackstar Squadron out again."

Kurj continued to watch me. His mind pressed on mine like a weight. I didn't care. I just wanted to go out and fight and fight until every Trader had suffered, the way Tams had suffered, the way every provider suffered. The way Rex suffered. I wanted to go out and pulverize the bastards.

"So you want another combat assignment," Kurj said.

"Yes, sir."

"You want to fight Traders."

"Yes, sir."

"Kill them."

"Yes, sir."

He regarded me steadily. "I once had this same conversation with Rex Blackstone."

That threw me off balance. "Why?"

Kurj got up and went to the window. He stood with his back to me, his hands clasped behind him as he stared over the city. His city. His planet. His empire.

"It was when you two came back from Tams Station," he said. "After you had been Kryx Tarque's provider."

I stiffened. Kurj knew what had happened from my reports, but I had never spoken about it to him. I didn't intend to start now.

"You think I want revenge for what happened to Rex," I said.

"Don't you?"

"Well, why not?"

"Revenge lust clouds the mind."

"My mind is fine."

"Blackstone said the same thing."

"This isn't the same."

"No, it isn't." Kurj turned to me. "I need you functioning. In sound body. In sound mind."

"You're looking for problems that don't exist."

Kurj didn't answer. He didn't even move. He just watched me with his metal face.

Warning, my node thought. External probe conducting search.

Let him look. It was true no other telepath had Kurj's raw power. But it was like his physical strength; blunt. He had none of the finesse needed to uncover what I had hidden from him.

He stood for a long time, unmoving. Finally he said, "I'll leave the combat option open. But right now I need you at JMI. I need a good trainer there."

"Yes, sir." I knew better than to push. But behind my barriers, hidden within the fortress of ice that surrounded my emotions, I thought, I'm coming back. Too much is unfinished.

Part Two: FORESHIRES HOLD

VIII
A Time To Search

Returning to the Foreshires Hold was like coming home. Almost. I had been stationed here a few years after receiving my commission. The barracks where I stayed then were part of a cramped building out in the countryside near Jacob's Military Institute, or JMI, about twenty kilometers from the city of Eos. Now my "rooms" were in the affluent section of Eos, in a venerable old building with luxury apartments. I would rather have stayed in the barracks. The spare living arrangements might have taken my mind off matters I didn't want to think about.

My assignment was to design a program to get JMI cadets into better physical shape. Two out of every eight days I worked with them, and the rest of the time their instructors carried out a schedule I had arranged. It was a good program. It would whip any cadet into top shape. But after I finished developing it, I didn't have a flaming thing to do. So for six of every eight days I sat in my penthouse and brooded. I knew what Kurj was up to. He wanted me to recover from whatever stress he imagined had interfered with my ability to function. I was a vital cog in his war machine, a cog he had decided needed refitting. So he gave me preposterous orders, stuck me in a beautiful city on a beautiful planet, and assumed nature would take care of the rest.

He was wrong. Nature did nothing. I sat in my apartment and stared at the walls until I was ready to explode. I had been a fool to consider leaving combat. I couldn't retire. It left a person too much time to think.

Kurj was right about one thing, though. The JMI program needed an overhaul. I reworked the cadets' schedule, everything from what they ate for breakfast to how many kilometers they ran to what scaffoldings they climbed. Only 14 percent of them could meet the physical requirements of the program when I first tested them.

Char Iaki, the Commandant at JMI, took me into his office one afternoon. He nodded toward the window. Outside, in the slanting light of Forshire's gilded sun, cadets were walking across the quad, heading to classes, the library, the simulation rooms.

"They need more time for class work," Char said. "They're too exhausted at the end of the day to move, let alone study."

"We had stricter requirements at the DMA," I said. The Dieshan Military Academy, which trained Jagernauts, lost half of each entering class by the time graduation came. But with reason. "These men and women have to be our best. If they can't make it, we need to find out now instead of when lives depend on their ability to operate under pressure."

"Training them," Iaki said dryly, "and breaking them are two different things."

So now I sat in my apartment and wondered if I were going overboard. Why bother training cadets at all? The Traders were inexorable. They would break us no matter how hard we fought. What was the use? We were all going to die, or worse, be devoured by the Aristo war machine.

Cut it out, I told myself. I picked up a holobook I had dropped on the sofa last night. The title glowed in rosy letters: Idioms from Afar. It was my hobby, learning figures of speech from other languages. My brother Kelric and I had done it all the time when we were young, always searching out clever turns of phrase. Sauscony está construyendo castillos en el aire. Sauscony is building castles in the air. Here was a good one from English: shot to high heaven.

I blew out a gust of air and set down the book. Then I went to a window in my living room and looked out at the countryside. The building stood at the edge of Jacob's Shire, a park of rolling hills covered with cloud-grass that rippled like golden clouds scudding across the land. The amber sun was low in the sky. It was a softer evening than on Diesha, shorter than on Delos.

Of all the places I had lived aside from my childhood home, I liked Foreshires best. It was the second world of an orangish star that had acquired the name Ruth from the explorer who discovered its planetary system. Prior to ISC occupation, the people here had simply numbered their twenty-three cities according to when each was built. Some poetry-minded administrator in Imperial Space Command had renamed this city Eos, after a dawn goddess he had read about in Allied mythology.

Kurj didn't have a poetic bone in his body, and he preferred literal names. But the mythology of Earth had always fascinated him, especially the works of a tragedian named Seneca. I had never read the stuff myself, and I doubted even Kurj knew why it enthralled him. Whatever the reason, he let Eos stand as the name for this city that before had been Ruth-2, * * *17.

I understood why someone would wax romantic about this place. It evoked reams of poetry from its people, the descendents of colonists who had settled here one hundred years ago. At this latitude, 30 degrees north, the planet's rings spanned the sky in a bridge, reaching their highest point directly south. Had I been at the equator, they would have gone straight overhead in a strip so narrow it almost vanished. Here they curved in a wider band, their lower edge 41 degrees above the horizon and the upper edge 45 degrees above it. Most of the arch was a pale whitish-gold, but as it curved to the mountain-rimmed horizon in the east and west, it shaded into a orange, then pink, and finally red.

I wondered what it had been like all those centuries ago when an asteroid glanced off Forshires' surface. It couldn't have been too catastrophic given that the planet was well on its way to healing, with only the rings as evidence of the event. The plants and animals were still adjusting, though. Friction with the upper atmosphere and collisions between rocks caused chunks of material to fall from the rings to the planet. They showered like meteors in the night sky. Dust floated in the air, chemical impurities and ash, a natural smog that never blew away. The amber sunlight also peaked closer to the red end of the spectrum than on most habitable worlds. It all came together to give this world a golden sky instead of the blue more common on planets with oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres.

For all its beauty, the sky looked strange to me. I didn't want to look at pretty sky anyway. I wanted to see people. Real people. Not robots or machines or Jagernauts. Normal people.

I bent down and rubbed my calf, working out a cramp. The gravity here was on the heavy side, though no more so than on the world where I had grown up. But it took me a while to adapt after I had been on Diesha or in space.

I went to a window that faced west, toward the city. A boulevard far below basked in the gilded evening light. Most of the street was hidden; the lush trees created a green canopy that started a few meters below the level of my apartment and rolled out west and north for kilometers. It was like being above leafy green clouds. A tower poked above the trees nearby, and others showed farther in the distance. Although they were the same as this one where I lived—metal and casecrete—they looked like delicate constructs of rosewood, ivory and ebony, as if an artist had crafted them to hang against the gold sky. Each curved in a crescent reminiscent of the rings. The convex side on the tower nearest me faced to the west, but others faced in other directions.

I peered down at the boulevard. Wasn't anyone around? Here and there, when the wind blew aside the leaves, I glimpsed the pale blue stones that paved the empty street.

A couple appeared, strolling along. They wore skimpy clothes that reminded me of rose and grey petals fluttering in the breeze. It was hard to see from up here, but it looked like the woman was laughing. The man laughed as well, a big fellow with dark hair and a big laugh. Like Rex.

I turned away from the window. What was the blazes wrong with my brother, sending me here with nothing to do but think?

Well, I didn't have to sit like a lump. I could go out. Do something. But what? The only people I knew on Forshires were military personnel. I kept getting asked to formal dinners at the Imperial Embassy where I stood around in my gold dress-uniform, with its glittering pants and tunic and sash, and that saber hanging at my hip, serving no useful purpose other than to glint along with everything else. It was awful.

I squinted at the wall console, a mesh system known as a Pak 20. It could do anything for me. Almost anything. I didn't think husband-providing was within its capabilities. Hell, maybe it could even do that. Virtual reality in the bedroom.

"Pako," I said. "I want some clothes."

A light glowed on the console. "Dress or duty uniform?" Pako asked.

"Not a uniform. Clothes. You know, like normal people wear."

"What style?"

Style? "I don't know. Pick something. What a woman here would wear to go for a walk."

Pako's screen came on and a holo appeared, a naked image of me standing in the air. It startled me to see how young I looked. Clothes appeared on the image, a bare-shouldered wrap that barely covered my breasts and buttocks.

"Is this acceptable?" Pako asked.

I reddened. "I said clothes. Not scraps."

The wrap changed to a filmy blue dress that came almost to my knees. "Is this acceptable?"

It was still less than I usually wore, but compared to what I had seen—or not seen—on the people here, it was conservative. "I guess so. Send it over."

It arrived within minutes, delivered by a young man in a blue uniform who smiled shyly. Shoes came with it, blue slippers with little silver bells that hung around the edge at the ankle. After the boy left, I put on the dress. The whole thing was lace. What was the function of that? The neckline went too low. And it had no sleeves, just straps that crossed in the back. I felt naked.

"So what?" I muttered. Then I went out for a walk.

Outside, I had no idea where to go. This district had few buildings, mostly just trees and plazas with those blue tiles. Some paths had rose and gold mosaics swirling through the blue. Mercifully, no nervoplex showed anywhere.

I crossed the street to a park. For a while I wandered down paths under the trees. The air quality was good tonight, the concentration of dust low enough that it didn't bother me. People strolled by, nodded, wished me a good evening. Men smiled at me. Everyone wore those shoes with the bells, so a sweet, faint music filled the park. It had to be a new style; I had never seen it before. Then again, I had never taken a walk like this. I felt like an intruder. I didn't belong here. This lovely evening was for normal people.

Eventually I came to a cafe with an giltwood sign that said, Heather's Dream. I wondered what Heather dreamed. Curious, I pushed open the door.

A big woman in an apron appeared, smiling broadly. "Good. You're right on time."

"I am?" I asked.

She bustled me over to a crescent-shaped table of unpolished wood and sat me down on a bench in its concave side. "Here you go."

A youth who couldn't have been much more than twenty slid into the seat next to me. "Hello," he said. "I'm Pulli."

As I blinked at him, the woman said, "Do either of you want a drink?"

"Rootberry juice for me," Pulli said.

Rootberry juice? People who drank rootberry juice took vitamins and ate noxious vegetables that looked like miniature cabbages. Why had the woman put me here with this Pulli person?

Before I could escape, more people showed up, then more, and even more. They crowded around the table, filling up its convex and concave sides, ordering drinks and introducing themselves. Within moments I was surrounded by a herd of rootberry drinkers. Everyone was talking at once, saying where they lived, what they did for a living, where they went to school. They were university students and young professionals, all glowing with health.

A lanky man folded himself in on my left, grinning at me. "So, Green Eyes, you got a name?"

"It's not Green Eyes," I said.

He laughed. "I'm Hilten. Raik Hilten. Everyone calls me Hilt."

I nodded, wondering how I was going to extract myself from Hilt and his healthy friends.

At the far end of the table a woman stood up. "All right everyone, let's get to business. I'm Delia, your excursion leader. We'll only go a few kilometers tonight. Next time we'll do a full day, but I wanted you to meet each other first." She smiled. "Well, happy hikers, let's catch the trail."

For flaming sake. I had been trapped by a gang of rootberry-guzzling happy hikers. As the group squeezed out from the table, I prepared to make my escape.

Hilt stood up with me and took hold of my arm. "Listen, Green Eyes. You can have the honor of being my partner tonight."

"Thanks, but I can't stay." Call me Green Eyes again, I thought, and I'll dump a pitcher of rootberry juice over your head.

Someone nudged my mind with silent laughter at my image of Hilt doused in juice. I turned and found myself looking at a youth across the buzzing group, a man with bronze curls and brown eyes. He smiled at me. His touch on my mind hadn't been strong, but it was enough to reveal he was an empath. He was also gorgeous, shy, marvelously well built, and bore absolutely no resemblance to either Rex or Jaibriol. I smiled back at him. Maybe I would stick with the group after all.

So I went for a hike with a crowd of exceedingly healthy people I had never seen before in my life. It was an easy walk along dirt paths that meandered through the cloud-grass of Jacob's Shire, a chance for members in a newly formed hiking club to meet each other. The youth who had touched my mind turned out to be Jarith, a music student at the conservatory.

I should have enjoyed the walk. Here I was, on a beautiful evening in a beautiful place and with beautiful people. But I couldn't relax. What was I doing, acting normal? I was an impostor, pretending I had the right to behave like everyone else.

Stop it, I told myself. I had earned the right to enjoy one evening's rest.

Tell that to Rex, I thought. Tell the providers while they scream. Tell that to Tams Station.

I pushed my hand through my hair. My arm was shaking. What was wrong with me? Hilt had been talking to me for several moments, and I had no idea what he said. I could face death in combat a thousand different ways, yet I couldn't deal with a simple conversation.

We climbed to the top of a hill that let us look out across the countryside. The sun was dropping to the horizon in the west where the rings met the mountains, though this early in the summer it was too far north to sink behind that great arch. In the distance, the roofs of Jacob's Military Institute reflected its rays like liquid glass.

Hilt motioned toward JMI. "Take a look, Soz. That's where they train the robots."

I glanced at him. "Robots?"

He wasn't smiling any more. "That's right. Robots trained to salute and kill."

It took conscious effort for me to remain calm, an effort far out of proportion to his comment. "Those cadets you call robots are all that stand between you and the Traders."

Hilt scowled. "Don't tell me you're one of those."

"One of what?"

"Parrots of the empire, our dearly beloved military dictatorship."

A woman named Mika spoke. "You have it wrong, Hilt. For a dictatorship you need a dictator. We don't have a dictator. We have a Triad." Dryly she said, "That's three dictators, my friend."

"That's absurd," Pulli said. "The Assembly rules Skolia. Not the Triad."

"If you believe that, you are woefully naive," Mika said.

"What Triad?" Hilt demanded. "Everyone knows Lord Valdoria is just a propaganda figurehead they prop up there because the people love him."

I went rigid. He was talking about my father. Eldrinson Althor Valdoria. True, he became an interstellar potentate by accident. A simple farmer from a backwater planet, he had neither the interest nor knowledge to rule the Imperialate. The only reason he ever left home was because of his epilepsy; without treatment, he suffered such severe convulsions he could barely function.

A memory jumped into my mind: twenty-seven years ago, the Traders had tried to assassinate Kurj. Only a Dyad existed then, Kurj as Imperator and my aunt as Assembly Key. After the attempt, while Kurj lay near death, the Traders launched an assault against our capital world. In the ensuing chaos, my aunt's bodyguards whisked her to the hidden base Safelanding. Then the Traders penetrated our computer defenses—and crashed the Kyle-Mesh.

The entire interstellar network collapsed. Telops managed minor patches, but only Kurj or my aunt had both the Rhon strength and Dyad access required to restart the system. But my aunt was unreachable at Safelanding and Kurj was in a coma. It left Skolia blind and deaf, floundering like a crippled animal with its brain gutted.

The Traders moved in for the kill. But they had miscalculated. My father—the "nobody" of the Rhon—had been at an ISC hospital, seeing the doctors who monitored his epilepsy. When the Kyle-Mesh failed, he had been only a few minutes away from one of its control centers. So the desperate Skolian military had sent him in to join the Dyad and make in a Triad.

No one knew what would happen when my father joined Kurj and my aunt in that circle of power. It might disintegrate, unable to spread itself over three such disparate minds. Or it could overload, killing them all in one galaxy-wide short circuit. Or maybe, just maybe, my father would survive long enough to repower it. Never mind that he had no idea how it worked, that he came from a society so primitive it had no electricity, that he might die from a mental overload even if the system survived. It was either put him in the Triad or let Skolia fall to the Traders.

No one expected what happened. My father told me later that the Kyle-Mesh had looked like a toy that day, like the nets that we, his children, used to play with when we were small. Except this sparkling net was broken. So he fixed it—and reactivated the star-spanning brain of Skolia.

He didn't understand the technology. To this day he can't access it without help. But none of that matters. Once he enters Kyle space, he becomes it, supporting the mesh like the ocean supports a huge net floating within it. He handles it with an innate gift no one else in my family can match.

My voice came out cold enough to chill ice. "Without that man you so blithely call a figurehead, you wouldn't be standing here free to insult the Rhon. You'd be a Trader slave, mister."

Hilt snorted. "I always wonder if you people who spew out Imperial propaganda have any comprehension of reality."

Pulli spoke uneasily. "Maybe we shouldn't be having this discussion."

"That's the whole point." Hilt's voice snapped. "We're so oppressed by the Rhon we're afraid to discuss them. All that's allowed is worship. Well, I don't worship tyrants."

Gods. Where had that come from? "Why do you think the Rhon oppresses you?" I asked.

"I know what you're going to say," Hilt told me.

That was a good feat, considering I didn't. "What?"

"That the ISC 'occupies' planets for their own good."

"We don't live in a gentle universe," I said. "To survive, we need strength, and that includes people, territory, and resources. It we don't get them first, the Traders or the Allieds will."

"That's one hell of a justification," Hilt said. "What makes it any more right for the Rhon to do the conquering instead of the Traders or the Allieds?"

Rebeka, another woman in the group, spoke up. "The Allieds don't conquer anyone. They offer citizenship as a choice."

I glanced at her. "You think we ought to do the same?"

She spoke carefully. "Doesn't it bother you that we're forced to follow laws enforced by the leaders of a military occupation who never gave us a choice?"

My anger flared. "You don't think Imperial law is just?"

"You're missing my point," Rebeka said. "When ISC occupied this world, they took everything, even the name of our planet. We never had the right to choose."

"To choose what?" Why was I so incensed? "If Foreshires hadn't become part of the Skolian Imperialate, you would still be struggling to survive instead of enjoying the affluence that lets you join hiking clubs and spend your time strolling in meadows."

Rebeka spoke quietly. "No, we weren't rich before. But we had the right to be ourselves."

Hilt was watching me closely. "Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that people want responsibility for their own lives?"

"The Allieds have a luxury we don't share." Even I could hear how bitter I sounded. "As long as we and the Traders claw at each other's throats, Earth is free to do as she pleases. So fine. Good for Earth. If we ever adopted her practices, it would kill us."

"You're certainly cynical," Mika said.

Hilt snorted. "I'm not sure I believe the Traders are such a big threat. What better evil than the Aristos could the Rhon conjure up to divert attention from their own flaws?"

My face went hot. "If you think the Traders are no threat, you're a fool."

"Right," Hilt said. "Now you're going to spout off the List of Aristo Evils. Come on, Soz. I mean, have you ever actually seen a provider?"

I froze as the memories jumping into my mind: Tarque, kneeling over me on his bed while I screamed and screamed and screamed—

"Leave her alone!"

Everyone spun around. It was Jarith who had spoken, the youth from the music school.

The others stared at the usually soft-spoken musician. He reddened but he didn't back down. "Stop it," he said.

"Why?" Hilt demanded.

Rebeka spoke to Hilt in a low voice. "He's an empath."

Hilt blinked at Jarith. Then he turned back to me. "What did I say?"

I swallowed. "You asked me if I had ever seen a provider. The answer is yes."

Everyone went silent then. I had no intention of elaborating and no one asked me to. The look on Jarith's face had been enough to tell them the details were better left unsaid.

Rebeka motioned toward the far side of the hill, where the rest of the group had started to walk. "They're leaving."

So we followed. Conversation began again, fitfully at first and with more ease as it drifted to less volatile subjects. I stayed out of it. I hadn't felt much like talking before and now I just wanted to get out of here. The worst of it was that they were right. People needed freedom to thrive. But they were wrong about the Rhon. We had no more freedom than they. We were locked in a war that left us no choices.

Was I truly fool enough to believe Jaibriol could make a difference? He was the one who would change. He would do what he had to do to survive. He would become Highton. And I would watch, hating myself for wanting to believe otherwise, hating myself for loving him.

I can't bear this, I thought. My mind is going to implode.

Jarith came up alongside me. "I'm sorry about eavesdropping."

"Eavesdropping?"

"Your image—of the Aristo." He paled. "It was so vivid."

"You don't need to apologize. I practically shouted it at you."

He didn't probe, but I felt what he wanted to ask. Was it you on that bed? I shook my head, not wanting to pursue the subject, and let him interpret that however he wanted.

"I hope you're not angry with the others," he said. "They're just not used to hearing such a conservative line."

"You think I'm conservative?"

He laughed. "Ultra." A grimace chased across his face like a cloud scudding over the sun. "Don't worry about Hilt. He gives me a labor too."

Translate last sentence from Jarith, I thought.

It's slang, my node answered. To give a labor: to behave in a confrontational manner.

I couldn't fathom why anyone would give Jarith a hard time about anything. "What for?"

"He says I'm apathetic. He thinks I should fight for what I believe in." Jarith shrugged. "I guess I'm just not political. I'd rather sing."

I sighed. Here was this gentle youth with the face of an angel and no political opinions. Pako couldn't have found me a better companion if I had programmed it to search the planet.

Right, I thought. What's the problem, Soz? You can't deal with anyone who challenges you?

I gritted my teeth. I dealt with people who challenged me all the time. All day long, every day, every year, every decade. I deserved a rest.

You're not resting, my inner voice answered. You're hiding.

Shut up, I told it.

"Some of us are going to a holomovie," Jarith said. "Would you like to come?"

Good gods. He was asking me for a date. At least, I thought that was what he was doing. It had been so long since I had socialized that way, I wasn't sure if I remembered what qualified as a date. Maybe when people went in a group it had some other name. Gang date? No, that sounded too weird.

Who cared what it was called? What was wrong with me, having conversations in my head?

"Yes," I said. "I'd like to go." I had almost nothing in common with these people, but going to a movie with anyone right now was better than returning to my empty apartment.

After we washed up at the café, we strolled through the park outside. Jarith came, also Hilt and Rebeka and a handful of others, everyone wearing chiming shoes now instead of hiking boots. As the sun set behind the hills, the horizon lit up with a spectacular red fire and the sky turned dark bronze. The shining rings arched across it, pale amber at their apex and a rich crimson at the western horizon. In the east, the shadow of Foreshires fell across the arch, and it looked like a mythical dragon had taken a bite of it, leaving the edges red and the center black.

As the sun disappeared, the evening grew chill. Hilt lent me his sweater. Mercifully, conversation stayed light, just a lazy discussion about what holomovie to see. I had no opinion. I had absolutely no idea what was out. We solved the problem by walking into the first theater we found, which was playing something called "Brain Warp." The holos outside showed a Jagernaut, feet planted wide, blasting away with his Jumbler. Half the shows nowadays had soldiers as heroes.

We sat on a plush rug in a circular theater with about two hundred other people. Jarith and I reclined on cushions, talking about his classes at the university. Rebeka and Hilt were eating, and Pulli bought another glass of that godawful rootberry juice.

After a few moments the lights went out. Music swelled, the urgent beat of a drum overlaid with a melody on horns and strings. Suddenly we were in a field near JMI. A Jagernaut stood nearby, a handsome man with dark hair, sculpted muscles, and a Jumbler snug in a holster on his hip. He took off jogging and we "jogged" with him, following at whatever distance the director had thought would give us the optimum view of the action.

Within minutes I knew I shouldn't have come. I saw how the movie was going to end almost as soon as it began. The Jagernaut went on a mission to rescue a beautiful and remarkably buxom woman who supposedly had been abducted by the Traders but was actually a Highton spy. The Traders caught the Jagernaut, planted a trigger in his brain, and let him go. We were supposed to wonder what horrible fate would befall our unsuspecting hero when the villains set off the trigger.

The movie made no attempt at accuracy. When the Jagernaut went to see a heartbender, the doctor's office was in a hospital. You never found a heartbender in a hospital. It was hard enough already to convince one of us to go for help. Faced with the prospect of walking into the hospital, a blatant admission of "Yes, I'm screwed up," most of us would head in the opposite direction. A true heartbender had an office somewhere innocuous, a place with no associations to mental health, usually a government building.

Even more grating, the "hero" spent most of his time breaking the code of honor we lived by. He cheated, lied, treated his lovers like dirt, and showed no hint of remorse when he went into combat. It was absurd. He was supposed to be an empath, for flaming sake.

The worst part was that the actor looked like Rex, who would never stoop to the behavior this guy inflicted on the galaxy. Yes, Rex had women everywhere. And yes, they were attracted to him because he was glamorous, handsome, and charming. But they fell in love with him because he was a good, decent human being who treated people well. This insipid holomovie was an insult to him.

When the movie reached its climax, big surprise—the Jagernaut went berserk. The Traders activated his trigger, and he lost his wits in a crowded plaza, shouting and mowing down buildings with his Jumbler. I was so mad by then that I got up and stalked out of the theater, right through the crazy Jagernaut, to the accompaniment of loud protests from the rest of the audience.

I was in the lobby outside when Jarith emerged from the theater and strode after me. "Soz, wait."

I stopped at the exit and waited for him, breathing too hard. As he reached me, Hilt and Rebeka came out of the theater. They milled around a bit until they saw us, then headed in our direction.

Jarith spoke softly. "What is it? What's tearing you up inside?"

"Nothing is tearing me up." I was so angry I could hardly speak. "I just don't enjoy trash."

Hilt and Rebeka reached us in time to hear my last comment. Hilt scowled at me. "You know, this attitude of yours is getting tiresome."

I wanted to hit him in the face. I hadn't been this angry in I didn't know how long. But why? So it was a stupid movie. So what? "Go to hell," I said.

Rebeka lay her hand on my arm. "It's only a holomovie."

I pulled away from her. "It's an offense to the people who go out there and risk their lives everyday so kids like you can live safe and healthy and free to watch banal movies."

I expected Hilt to tell me I was being an idiot. Instead he just shrugged. "I don't see why you're making such a big deal about it. No one ever meant for 'Brain Warp' to be a political statement or a work of art."

"Listen," Rebeka said. "Maybe we all got off to the wrong start. How about if we try again? Why don't we forget this movie and go for drinks somewhere?"

I knew the last thing I could handle was drinks with them. I made myself speak in an apologetic voice. "I'm pretty tired. I guess I'm on a short fuse. I should go home and sleep." The words were a cover. I wouldn't sleep. But I had to say something.

Neither Rebeka nor Hilt looked disappointed that I wouldn't join them. Jarith kept watching me. He stood silently while I said good-bye to the others, but after they headed back to the theater he said, "May I walk you home?"

Huh. No one had done that in decades. My shoulders relaxed. "That would be nice."

As we strolled across the park, I tried to think of something to say. No clever lines came. For that matter, no stupid lines came either.

When we stopped outside my apartment building, Jarith gaped up at it. "You live here?"

"When I'm on Forshires," I said.

He smiled at me. "You travel a lot?"

"Some." I wanted him to come upstairs and keep me company, real company, the way a man could help a woman hold the night at bay. I wanted him to make love to me again and again until his warm masculinity banished the ghosts that haunted my mind.

Jarith whistled. "I've never known anyone who could afford a place like this."

Okay, I told myself. There's your opening. Ask him up.

What if he said no?

"Are you going back to the movie?" I asked.

"Just to get my coat." He grimaced. "I promised to meet some people to study later. We have an art exam tomorrow."

"Oh." An exam. What was wrong with me, lusting after an artist, someone with all of the aesthetic qualities I lacked. It could never work.

Jarith hesitated. "Would you like to get together again?"

I couldn't. Shouldn't. So of course, I said, "Yes, sure."

"Some of us are going to the beach on Tillsmorn. Why don't you come? We'll meet you here at noon."

I smiled. "All right."

"Well. Good." He grinned at me. "See you." Then he took off back toward the theater.

I went upstairs. My place seemed dark even after I turned on every light. I had lamps all over, graceful flowers of glass tinted to diffuse their light into a pleasant glow. The walls were paneled in giltwood. Windows arched everywhere, letting in copious ringlight from the sky. The carpet was white, the silky cushions on the sofa were white, the sculpted moldings on the doors were white. The place was gorgeous. But tonight it looked dark and cold and empty.

I was at the bar pouring a glass of whiskey when Pako said, "You have a visitor."

I looked up, eager despite myself. Had Jarith returned to help me chase away the loneliness? "Who is it?"

Pako's screen cleared to show the steps outside the apartment. Hilt stood out there, shivering in the chill air.

"Damn," I muttered. I went to the console and flicked on the comm. "Yes?"

His voice came over the speaker. "You forgot to give back my sweater."

"Oh. Sorry." I had forgotten I still had it on. "Pako, let him up."

A few moments later a knock sounded at my door. When I opened it, Hilt stood there. "Hey, Green Eyes, you've got some place here."

"How did you know where I lived?" I asked.

"Jarith told me."

I gave him his sweater. "Thanks for letting me wear it." Then I started to close the door.

Hilt pushed open the door and walked into the apartment. "You make a lot more sense now."

I regarded him from the doorway. "I don't recall inviting you in."

"No wonder you come down on such a traditionalist line. You're Money." He turned to me. "I'll bet it's Old Money too."

"Good-night, Hilt."

He came back over to me. "The Ice Princess. Of course you support Rhon politics." He slid his finger along the strap of my dress, following it down my front until his hand came to rest between my breasts. "You have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo."

I pushed away his hand. "Get out."

He pressed me against the wall, his face so close to mine, he was almost kissing me. "Someone ought to crack open that Ice Bitch crust of yours."

I snapped. I shouldn't have, but I did. My combat reflexes weren't supposed to kick in unless I was threatened with direct violence. And Hilt wasn't. He was abrasive and obnoxious and I didn't like him, but he was no rapist. A simple "stop it" would have been enough.

But I didn't tell him to stop it. I tried to kill him.

By the time my reflexes registered on my mind, I had already shattered my whiskey tumbler against the wall behind me and was stabbing a dagger of glass at Hilt's chest. Blood poured from my hand where the glass shredded my skin. When the signal from my brain finally stopped my thrust, the shard was less than a centimeter from his body. It happened so fast that even after I stopped, Hilt just stood there, staring at the dagger. Finally he drew in a breath. Then he took the glass out of my hand. I looked at the blood running all over my skin, my arm, my dress.

"You'd better get a doctor," Hilt said.

"It's nothing. I'll clean it up."

I expected him to call the police then. Instead he spoke quietly. "I'm sorry. I was out of line."

He was out of line? I had almost just killed him. What was wrong with me?

"I'll call the hospital," he said.

I had to struggle to keep my voice calm. "No. Just go."

He looked at the blood gushing out of my hand. "That looks— "

"Go."

"All right." Hilt opened the door. "I'll check on you tomorrow."

"It isn't necessary." I closed the door after him and locked it.

Pako spoke. "I can have medical help here within one minute."

I went to the bar, turned on the waterfount, and stuck my hand into the arching spouts of water. "No. I'm fine." The water running into the sink turned red.

After I cleaned and bandaged my hand, I poured another drink. If I got drunk enough, I wouldn't be able to think. And right now I didn't want to think.

"I have pending business for you," Pako said. "Your meshmail has been waiting for six hours."

"I'll check it tomorrow."

"One of the messages requires attention."

I scowled at the console. "All right. Play it."

The voice of Char Iaki, the Commandant at JMI, floated into the room. "Sorry to disturb you, Primary Valdoria. We've had to postpone tomorrow's training session with the flyers because of an engine failure. Can you do your lecture instead?"

He must have meant the lecture I was supposed to give about mesh-human interfaces. "Pako, tell him tomorrow is fine."

Then I got drunk. Very drunk.

IX
A Time To Weep

"Isn't it dangerous?" the cadet asked. She leaned forward at her console in the classroom. "The fiberoptics and biomech are foreign bodies. Doesn't your body reject them?"

The huge number of questions from the cadets had caught me by surprise. I was at the front of the hall, half sitting on the front edge of a desk while I answered the questions. Iaki had offered me a podium, but I felt more comfortable this way. And I did feel comfortable. I was enjoying the lecture.

"Most of the system is grown from my own genetic material," I said. "It's similar to having, say, a regenerated organ. So in that sense, it isn't really dangerous. Still, it's much more extensive. Not everyone's body will accept it."

A cadet farther back in the packed hall signaled. When I nodded, he said, "What if the fiberoptics malfunction?"

"The threads carry messages," I said. "Like nerves. If something goes wrong, they just don't carry any more messages."

"Can't your brain misinterpret their signals?" he asked.

"Possibly," I said. "But it could misinterpret signals from any part of my nervous system."

A woman next to him spoke. "What if something goes wrong with the person who has all these enhancements? Most times, if you surprise people—well, they just jump. But if we wire people to kill, don't we run the risk that if their mind malfunctions, their systems will too? An insane Jagernaut could do a lot amount of damage."

What the hell kind of dumb-assed question was that? "Our reflexes activate only if our lives are in danger. We're trained not to react in other situations." I glanced at the wall-timer above Char Iaki, who stood by the door. Iaki had made no move to stop the session even though we had gone twice as long as scheduled.

I turned back to the cadets. "We've been talking over two hours now. Time to quit."

A murmur of disappointment rolled over the hall. Then they started to clap. And they kept on doing it. I stood there at a loss for how to react. I wasn't used to people applauding for me. Usually either they wished I would go away or else they were Traders who wanted to kill me. Socially, all I seemed to do lately was annoy people.

But the cadets kept clapping. So I grinned.

As the cadets filed out of the hall, Char came over. "You fascinate them."

"I didn't expect so many questions."

He smiled. "It's not every day they get to talk to a marvel of biosynthetic technology."

I laughed. "Thanks. I think." His comment left me with the same odd feeling as the last question, as if I could malfunction like the engine in a flyer. I rubbed my neck, pushing my thumb over the socket there.

"Need a lift to the city?" Char asked. "I noticed you didn't bring a flycar this morning."

"Thanks. But no. The underground is fine." I actually hated the underground. This morning, when I had come down from my apartment to leave for JMI, I had stood looking at my flycar for almost five minutes trying to convince myself to get in. But for some reason I couldn't.

So I took the underground. People had stared as if I had two heads. True, most commuters weren't Jagernauts in full uniform. I was tight and deadly black from head to toe. I had even worn standard-issue black gloves, to hide the bandages on my hand. The Jumbler at my hip hadn't helped. I brought it because I planned to talk about how it was keyed to my brain, but after I boarded the train I wished I hadn't worn it. The commuters looked terrified. Well, yes, most people didn't carry a particle accelerator with antimatter on their hip. But I had the safety engaged. It wouldn't discharge.

The sun was setting by the time I left JMI. The air was clear and the day still pleasantly warm. A lovely evening. Why take the underground? It was only twenty kilometers through Jacob's Shire from here to my apartment. I could jog it in less than two hours. Or I could take the road, a country lane that meandered for twenty-five kilometers through the countryside until it reached the city of Eos. If I felt tired, I could catch the flybus that ran along it every few hours.

I headed along the road, walking past meadows filled with cloud-grass and double shadows, double shadows, one in each pair stretched out from the setting sun, the other a fainter silhouette from the rings. Birds with gold feathers hopped through the grass and sporadically fluttered their wings to fly a few meters. Purple-furred animals with big ears loped after them, sailing above the ground, momentarily outlined against the bronzed sky, then disappearing below the grass. The scenery looked unreal, as if it were a holomovie shot through gold filters.

After an hour or so I came to a café by the road. Someone inside was singing. I hesitated, wanted to go in but not wanting to be stared at. Loneliness finally won, and I pushed open the door.

Inside, tables stood along the walls and in the middle of the room. Nothing but candles lit the place, star-shaped molds with purple wax pooling in their points. With the evening fading, very little light came from outside. A man with curly brown hair sat on a stool on a dais, relaxed and informal, singing in a husky baritone. A few people sat around, talking or listening to the music. I slipped into the seat at an empty table by the wall. When the waitress came, she barely glanced at the Primary's bands on my jacket. Perhaps this close to JMI, she was used to seeing officers.

I ordered a glass of gilder rum. And drank it. And ordered more. And drank it. I had downed more alcohol in the past two days than in the previous year. But I felt comfortable here, ensconced in this dusky room with nothing to do but listen to this fellow sing. He reminded me of Jarith. He didn't really look like Jarith, other than his brown hair, but he was an artist and he was handsome.

I motioned the waitress over to the table. "I'd like another drink."

"Rum?" she asked.

"Yes." I indicated the singer. "Would you—when he finishes—would you ask him if he'd like to join me?" I hesitated. What if he didn't want to come over? Hastily I added, "Unless he has to prepare for his next set."

The waitress smiled. "I'll tell him."

I had finished two more drinks by the time the youth stopped singing. The waitress beckoned to him. After they spoke, he peered across the room at me. Then he nodded to her and went behind the stage.

I winced. So much for my invitation. Before I had time to feel stupid, though, he reappeared and came toward me. He stopped by my table and bowed. "Evening, ma'am."

With a smile, I said, "Soz." I indicated the booth. "Like t'join me?"

"It would be my pleasure." He sat down across the table. "I'm Nik."

"Nik." Had a good sound to it. "What'd you like to drink?"

"Ale would be fine."

I motioned the waitress over. "Bring us ale and rum."

"Yes, ma'am." She had that look waitresses got when they thought you had drunk too much.

Nik glanced at my empty glasses, then at the waitress. "Actually, I think I'd rather have coffee." He smiled at me. "Will you join me?"

Coffee? Gods, the Allieds had infiltrated even this place. "No thanks," I said. "Rum's fine."

After the waitress, left I tried to think of something clever to say. My mind wouldn't cooperate. It kept wandering. All I came up with was, "You sing well."

"Thanks," Nik said.

"My brother is a singer. Ballads n'things." I grimaced. "I try never to inflict my voice on people. Scares 'em."

Nik laughed as if I had said something funny. "I'll bet you have a beautiful voice."

"Beautifully off tune." It scared even me. "The only person I ever sang to was my little brother Kelric, when he was a baby." I could see him in my mind, smiling that smile I had so loved. "I guess he didn't mind. When he was two and I was eleven, he used to run up for a hug."

Nik's face gentled. "That sounds nice."

I warmed at the memory. "It was."

Although we continued to talk, I was having trouble with the words. They kept slurring. For some reason Nik seemed to enjoy my company anyway, despite my inability to communicate like an intelligent human being.

When the waitress returned with our drinks, Nik gave her an odd look. It reminded me of how my "little" brother used to look when something worried him. Little. Huh. Kelric had grown into a giant, as big as Kurj. But where Kurj was hardness and metal, Kelric was sunlight and laughter. It was strange to see Kelric's look on this Nik person, though. Whatever he wanted, the waitress seemed to understand. She nodded slightly and left the table.

I took a swallow of rum. "Kelric liked that lake too."

"Lake?" Nik looked puzzled.

"It was—this big lake." My thoughts wandered. Across the room, the waitress was talking to a balding man with a large stomach who had the look of a proprietor. He walked in our direction.

"You went to a lake with your brother?" Nik asked.

"We—yes." That proprietor was definitely focused on us. "He's comin' here."

"Your brother?"

"Nooo."

The proprietor reached the table and gave me a deep bow. "Evening, ma'am. Welcome."

"Lo'," I said. The room tilted behind him.

He smiled broadly. "I'm glad you enjoyed Nik's show."

"Yes." I wished he would go away so I could enjoy Nik.

"Maybe you would like a change from the rum?" he suggested. "We have excellent mineral water."

"Rum's fine." Fizzy water was almost as bad as rootberry juice.

The proprietor tried again. "Perhaps a litt— "

"Thanks," I interrupted. "But I'm fine."

"Well. Good." He nodded, looking troubled, and left.

Why did they keep bothering me? I unholstered my Jumbler and put it on the table. Of course I had no intention of using it. But it would keep away unwanted visitors.

Nik stared at the gun, then looked up at me.

"Ever seen one of these beauts before?" I asked.

"Not up close." He looked like he didn't want to see it now either.

"It won't hurt you." I lifted the Jumbler and tapped it against my temple. "We used t'swim in that lake."

Nik's face went white. "Soz—the safety—"

"What?" I was having a hard time holding my hand steady. The gun slipped, skittering against my head.

The proprietor suddenly reappeared, speaking in a fast voice. "Why don't you give me that?"

I stared at him, astounded he would ask for my weapon. When he reached for it, I pulled back with a jerk, and he barely managed to push it away from my head.

Then he clicked the safety into place.

For a long moment I sat there, staring at the gun in my hand. The safety had been disengaged. Off. Off. I had put a loaded Jumbler to my head without the safety on.

I slowly slid the Jumbler back in its holster. Then I stood up, regarding the proprietor. "Do you have a place where I could lie down?"

Relief washed over his face. "Of course. Just follow me."

He took me to a small living room in the back of the building. It looked like part of his own house, separated from the café by a hallway. As I dropped onto the sofa, I heard the faint sounds of Nik singing again. The proprietor brought me a jug of some hot drink, but I couldn't swallow any.

Although I didn't actually lie down, I must have sat for over an hour while my mind cleared. Finally I lifted my head and looked around. The proprietor was sitting in an armchair across the room.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Drunk." Comprehension of what I had done had sunk into my skull. One slip of my finger and I would have annihilated my biosynthetic head. I put my elbows on my knees and my forehead in my hands. I could feel the gloves against my skin, the leather shields that hid the bandages on my hands.

He came over and sat on the couch. "Do you want me to call someone to pick you up?"

"No." I stood up, then held still while queasiness rolled through my stomach. "I thank you for your help. But now I need to—" Need to what? "To walk."

"Are you sure?"

"It will clear my head." I headed for the door, not the one back to the restaurant but another on the other side of the room.

The proprietor came with me. "No more buses run to the city until morning. You can sleep on the couch here."

"I'll be all right." I tilted my head toward the cafe. "Say goodnight to Nik for me. Tell him I enjoyed talking."

"I will." He opened the door and let me out into a field behind the restaurant.

More stars showed here than in Eos, though they still weren't easy to see in the glare of the rings. The planet's shadow had moved up them until it cut the span in half, the two sides like scythes it the sky, their edges rimmed in red. The perfume of cloud-grass filled the air, along with the chirps and rustles of a country night. I headed along the road, still drunk enough for my brain to feel dull. I didn't want to think. I didn't want to know what impelled me to point a primed Jumbler at my head.

I walked for hours. Eventually the road widened into a highway, which meant I was about five kilometers from Eos. Up on the left, the subdued light of Soldier's Green glowed in the night. It was a huge park, its wide lawns interspersed with gardens and tiled pools. A beautiful park. But it didn't exist for beauty. It was a memorial to the ISC soldiers who had died in battle.

I stopped and stared into the Green. I had never visited it despite the many times I had been on Forshires. I didn't want to go now. But my feet took me anyway. I walked down gravel paths through garden after garden, avoiding the monuments and statues, the sculptures and plaques and obelisks. I let myself see only lawns and flowers.

Until I reached the Dome.

It was a circular structure, about ten meters wide and as tall as a two story building. The walls reached almost to the domed roof. They consisted of twenty-nine panels, each a meter wide, with a handspan of open space separating each panel. The thirtieth panel was missing, leaving an entrance at the top of three steps. The entire monument was made from white marble. And that was to it.

Except for the names.

They appeared inside, carved into the panels, filling about half of them. Every year the unused space diminished. What would we do when the last panel filled with names? How many more Domes would we need to list the Imperial Jagernauts who had died in combat? For that was the monument's sole reason for existence—to honor Imperial Skolia's defunct biosynthetic marvels.

I walked up the steps and into the monument. I didn't want to see the panels. I didn't want to see the names. But I kept moving, unable to stop. I went to the wall opposite the entrance and looked at the engravings in the marble. The date of death carved next to each name was old, decades old.

I recognized far too many of them.

I was starting to shake. It wasn't cold, but my body shook as if ice covered it. I walked around the Dome, looking at the panels, seeing more recent dates, seeing more familiar names. So many. So many. Why did I know so many of them? I remembered their faces, how they laughed, walked, spoke. Every name cursed me, an accusation that I lived when they had died. I wanted to run from this place, to hide, to bury my head in the oblivion of alcohol, of forgetfulness, of death. But I couldn't stop reading, or walking, or remembering. I came closer and closer to the last panel, inexorably, unable to keep away. I didn't want to go near it, but I couldn't stop.

Then I was there. The dates were from the past year. His name was engraved at eye level, just a name, like all the others.

Kelricson Garlin Valdoria Skolia, Jagernaut Tertiary.

Kelric. My baby brother.

He had been Kurj's third heir. The only other person besides Jaibriol Qox who had ever shared with me that miraculous joining of minds only two Rhon psions could know.

I took off my gloves and touched the marble, scraping my fingers along his name. Then, slowly, I slid to my knees, my hand dragging along the stone, my fingernails rasping over each name. I crumpled at the bottom with my fists clenched on my knees and my head bowed. And I cried.

I knelt there, my shoulders heaving, and I wept until it hurt.

X
A Time To Heal

The caroling of a bird pulled me awake. I lifted my head, confused. Why was I so stiff? I found myself looking across a stone floor to a stone panel. Then I remembered.

I was sitting with my back against a panel of the Dome and my knees pulled to my chest. Although the sun hadn't yet risen, dawn was probably only a few minutes away. I put on my gloves, then rose to my feet and walked stiffly out of the monument, my mind slowly waking with the rest of the morning. The dawn's chill cut the air, and dew covered my uniform. I felt exhausted, as if I had run a race all night.

I crossed a lawn to the highway, heading into Eos. Only a few flycars hovered along the road this early, sailing on air cushions above the blue tiles. Their passengers stared as they whirred past, but today I didn't care. I didn't have the energy. Nothing mattered except completing this walk. I kept my mind numb, afraid that if I let it function, I would never finish what I had started.

By the time I reached Eos, the sun had risen. The road became a wide boulevard that cut through the center of the city. Trees lined the street, though fewer than where I lived. Broad lawns of trimmed cloud-grass floated everywhere, stretching between government buildings and around ring shaped sculptures. Traffic hummed on the road, and pedestrians strode along the walkway, some glancing at me with wariness or curiosity, others absorbed in their own thoughts.

I kept going.

Eventually I reached the Imperial embassy. I climbed the wide steps, walked between the soaring columns, and entered a vaulted hall that arched high above my head. People sat on the benches lining the walls, engrossed in their own business: talking, reading, waiting. At the far end of the hall, a line of people waited to enter the embassy proper, to take care of whatever business had brought them here. I walked down the hall, my boots echoing on the marble floor, and joined the line.

I could have bypassed it. I could have gone to the front or to another entrance, or even gone home and had someone from the Embassy pick me up after I slept. Instead I waited. If I deviated from this walk, I would never finish it.

The line went up a flight of stairs to where a woman stood at a podium. She gave each person directions and then sent them through a security check into the embassy. When I reached the front of the line, the woman smiled and spoke as if it were perfectly natural for a Jagernaut Primary to show up at her station.

"What can we do for you this morning?" she asked.

I couldn't go on. I had made it this far, but I couldn't go any further.

She tried again. "Can I direct you to an office?"

I just looked at her. And then I said, "I want to see the heartbender."

The people behind me stopped talking. Everyone within earshot turned to look. The sudden silence jarred.

Whoever had chosen the embassy staff, chose well. The woman didn't even blink. This was probably the only time in her career she had encountered the request, but she showed no hesitation. She touched a button on her podium, then spoke to me. "An escort will take you to see Tager."

I looked past her to the wide marble hall that stretched far back into the embassy. Four men appeared at the end, striding toward us. They were big. I had no doubt they were also armed.

She motioned to the security gate. "You can go on through, Primary."

The gate was the usual arch monitored by guards. When I stepped through it, lights blazed, horns shrilled, buzzers buzzed. I hadn't even thought to take off my Jumbler. The two guards dropped their hands to their guns, and the escorts coming to get me increased their speed, coming faster down the hall. I just stood, trying to stay numb.

No one spoke. No one asked for my weapons. The people in line stared, the woman at the podium waited, the guards watched. I felt their emotions like sandpaper on a raw wound. They feared that if they did the wrong thing it would set me off like an explosion. No one understood the truth, that the risk was to me, not to them. One wrong word, one wrong look, one wrong move from anyone, and I would beat it out of there so fast, they would hear the air whistle past my clothes.

The escort reached us, and the tallest man bowed. "Welcome." He motioned toward the hall he had just come down, raising his arm as if I were a guest at an embassy dinner and he my host. He was undoubtedly one of the elite guards in their security force, but no sign hint of his status showed on his civilian clothes or in his gracious manner.

So I went with them. They took me through vaulted archways and polished corridors until we reached an office. Its walls were glass, dark and opaque on the outside, but I was sure whoever waited inside could see us.

A door in the glass slid open. Past it, a man stood in the center of the room regarding us. When my escort stopped at the door, I glanced at them, first right, then left. They just stood there. So I walked into the office alone. It was big, with a white carpet so thick it covered the toes of my boots. The glass shelves lining the walls held delicate vases, glass statues, other knick-knacks. The paintings on the walls were attractive enough to please the eye without being distracting.

I walked over to the man. He seemed a normal person with brown hair and a lean build.

"Are you the heartbender?" I asked. It wasn't his true title, of course. His official designation would be Imperial Space Command Class A6 Psychiatrist.

"Yes. I'm Jak Tager." He glanced at the escort and lifted his hand. The door immediately shut, leaving me in private with Jak Tager, Class A6 heartwrencher.

I went to a shelf and peered at a glass vase. "You have a lot of breakable stuff in here."

He came over to join me. "I guess I do."

He hardly looked like a world class mental health expert. The woman at the security check had just called him Tager. "Are you a doctor?"

He nodded. "I have a medical degree and also a doctorate in psychology."

"How many patients do you have?"

He smiled slightly. "One."

"Does that include me?"

"Yes."

I snorted. "Then what do you do with all your time?"

"Research." He seemed pleased by my interest. "I study the psychological effects of human-biomechanical interfaces."

Gods almighty. He was that Tager. I had read his work myself. The man was the undisputed expert on the effects of biomech on the people who carried them in their bodies. I had never realized his actual occupation was heartbender. It meant that in addition to his scientific accomplishments he also had an ISC commission, most likely from JMI or the Dieshan Military Academy.

I had no idea what to make of him. He looked so normal. Ten years ago, when I had gone to the heartbender after the Tams incident, I asked her how many patients she had seen in her career. She told me eight. Eight. In twenty-five years, and that included me who saw her only twice.

I hadn't wanted to see her. I had gone because I was forced. Yes, my CO had chosen well. Had I had any inclination to accept help, she could have given it. She was the one I wanted to talk to now. But that was irrelevant. Tager was my only choice, and for some stupid reason I didn't want to talk to a man. I didn't know why. I just didn't want to do it.

I exhaled. "Maybe I made a mistake coming here. I'm wasting your time."

"What made you decide to come?" he asked.

"No problem, really." After a moment I added, "I've just done a few things lately that are—a little strange."

"Strange in what way?"

"Last night I pointed a primed Jumbler at my head."

Tager spoke quietly. "Tell me about it."

"I was talking to this singer in a pub. I was drunk. I put the gun against my head without the safety on. My hand wasn't steady." I stopped. I didn't want to talk to this stranger, not about last night and not about anything.

Except this time I had come of my own free will, looking for something, I didn't know what, but I wouldn't find it unless I made an effort. I took a breath and tried again. "Two nights ago I almost killed a man, an ordinary civilian, just because he pushed me up against the wall. I don't know why. Well, yes, I think he's obnoxious. I don't like him and he doesn't like me. But that's all."

Tager was still watching me with that look of his, like he genuinely wanted to understand. Well, that was his job, after all. He had to look that way.

"How did it happen?" he asked.

"I didn't like how he touched me." I was getting uncomfortable, really uncomfortable, far more than what I was saying warranted. "I snapped. I don't know why."

"What did you do?"

"I broke a glass and almost stabbed him."

"Why didn't you like the way he touched you?" Tager spoke carefully, but not like the people at the security check who had been afraid I would explode. With Tager it was as if I was someone he respected, which was absurd considering I had known him less than five minutes. Respect had to be earned, and I had done nothing to earn his yet.

"He touched the strap of my dress." Relating the incident made me feel foolish. To say I had overreacted was an understatement. "Then he put his hand between my breasts and pushed me against the wall."

Tager didn't try to hide his surprise. "Did he know you were a Primary?"

"No. I had just met him in a hiking club."

"Did he threaten you?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"Why?" Tager asked.

I frowned at him. "What do you mean, why? Because I know."

"How?"

Why was he asking me that? "I'm an empath, that's how." I scowled. "He made some crack about me being a bitch. But he wouldn't have tried anything violent."

"And you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. You got a problem with that?"

"Your reflexes wouldn't activate without a reason."

Is this how he earned his probably stratospheric salary, by stating the obvious to his one and only patient? "You're the heartbender. You tell me what the problem is."

Tager exhaled. "You have to give me some help."

"That what you learned from all those degrees? Have the patient diagnose herself?"

He showed no irritation, just continued in his quiet voice. "I need you to tell me more."

Something was odd about the way he watched me. I had seen that look before. For some reason it eased my anger. "Like what?"

"Have you done anything else recently that is out of character?"

I finally recognized his expression. My mother got that look when someone she cared about was in pain. And his concern felt genuine. He wasn't giving me a trained mask he wore for patients, however few he had. I mattered to him. But why? Why should he feel compassion for me, a person he had never met before, a biosynthetic marvel of fake humanity?

"No," I said. "I haven't done anything else strange. I'm only myself." That was strange enough. "Maybe I should go home. I'm just tired, that's all. I walked a long way yesterday."

He smiled. "With the hikers?"

Hikers? He must mean the rootberry drinkers. "No. I walked back from JMI last night. Actually, I went to Soldier's Green. I slept there."

That definitely startled him. "Why?"

I wished he would stop asking that. "I was tired."

He stood there, waiting.

"I took the underground to JMI," I said. "But I didn't like being stared at. So I walked home."

"You don't have a flycar?"

"Yes, I do. But yesterday morning I couldn't get into it."

He spoke with care, probing. "Do you ride in them often?"

"All the time."

"Did something happen to you in a flycar?"

"Of course not."

"But yesterday you couldn't get into yours."

I suddenly wanted to shake him. "So what the hell is wrong with that?"

"Primary— " He paused, obviously looking for a name. I regarded him implacably. So he said, "Talking to me may make you uncomfortable. But if I'm going to help, I need you to answer."

I felt crowded. Taking a breath, I turned and walked away from him. When his desk blocked my retreat, I stopped and rested my hands on its edge.

After a moment I turned around. I spoke slowly, like a diver checking the temperature of freezing water. "A man named Kryx Tarque once took me in his flycar."

Tager stayed where he was, not crowding me. "That's a Highton name."

"He was a Highton man." My hands felt cold. "He picked me off a street on Tams Station. I was working undercover. I was—I—" I made myself say it. "I was his provider for three weeks. Every night, for most of the night. During the day too." Three weeks of unending torture.

Tager was good at making appropriate responses. Very good. The man could have faced an oncoming hovertrain with flinching. But even he couldn't hide his reaction. He spoke in the same even voice he had used since we met, but underneath it I felt his shock. "How did you escape?"

My voice cracked. "I strangled him while he was fucking me."

Tager came over to me. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"That you had to go through that."

"It was my job."

Incredulity tinged his voice. "That's a hell of a job."

"Look," I said. "It happened ten years ago. I've been fine for a long time. There's no reason for it to make problems for me now."

"The man you almost stabbed—does he look like Tarque?"

"No." That wasn't completely true. Hilt did have dark hair and a leanly muscular frame, like Tarque. He was tall too, like Tarque. And when he walked into my apartment that night, it had reminded me of the arrogance I had hated in Tarque, who had believed he had a right to do whatever he pleased to people he considered inferior. But it was only a surface reminder. Hilt was abrasive, yes, but even after knowing him only a few hours I could tell he was basically a decent human being.

"They aren't at all the same," I said.

"What about the singer in the cafe? Did he have any resemblance to Tarque?"

I snorted. "That man was the polar opposite of an Aristo. He had golden eyes and a golden voice. I doubt he would have hurt a shimmerfly."

Tager spoke gently. "You sound angry."

"Angry?" I stared at him. "Why should I be angry? I didn't want to hurt him. I wanted to make love to him."

"Tell me about him."

"I don't know anything about him."

Tager waited. I scowled and crossed my arms.

After a moment he tried a different tack. "Then you have no husband?"

Was it that obvious no one wanted me? "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

He let out a breath. "You strike me as someone who wouldn't consider a person as a potential lover if you were already committed to someone else."

"Oh." How had he known that? "So what? You expect me to be married?"

"Why does that anger you?"

"Stop being a heartbender and answer the damn question. You want me to be honest with you, then you be honest with me."

He spoke quietly. "Yes, I'm surprised you're not married."

I always got the same garbage: How could you be lonely? "Lose it, Tager."

"Why does that make you angry?"

"I'm not angry. Quit asking me that."

"You look furious."

"Sure. Right. Get that sexy Primary into bed. What a catch. Or else they want what Hilt wanted, to punish me with sex." My fist clenched at my side. "Maybe I should scar my face and wear rags and see if anyone wants me then."

He kept on in his maddening gentle voice. "Who is Hilt?"

I was furious at Tager, with his stupid questions. "Hilt is the bastard who shoved me up against the wall and called me an Old Money Ice Bitch."

"You're not."

I felt like a hovertrain that had just run into a brick wall. "What?"

In his gentle voice, he said, "The reason I'm surprised you're not married is because so few empaths with your sensitivity can bear to live alone."

"I have the sensitivity of a cement block."

He smiled. "An unusual block."

"I'm not making a joke."

"Neither am I."

I couldn't believe him. "What makes you think you know anything about me?"

Tager spread his hands. "I go on experience, training, gut level reactions. I'm also an empath."

"Oh." Of course. In his line of work he had to be an empath. "I don't think I want to talk any more." Telling him about myself was more exhausting than walking back from JMI. I just wanted to go home and sleep. "I don't know if I'll come back."

"I think you should," Tager said.

That stopped me cold. I had thought he would say what Kurj implied, that I was overworked, that I should go out and live a normal life. Relax. Rest. I had expected Tager to tell me, tactfully, that I didn't need to waste his time with my self-indulgent worries about my inability to relate to people.

Instead he wanted me to come back.

But talking to him took too much out of me. "I don't know if I have time."

"I don't think it would be wise for you to stop."

I stared at him. "Why?"

He had that look again, like my mother. "I need to see you more before I can understand why you're so angry. This much I can tell: if you don't deal with it, something is going to give."

I tensed. "You think I'm going to hurt someone?"

"It's possible."

I knew it. I had known it all along. I forced myself to say it. "You think I'm going to lose control and kill someone, don't you?"

"I don't believe you're capable of killing without provocation." Then, with no warning, he lifted my hand and pulled off my glove, revealing the bandages underneath. "How did you do this?"

How I had he guessed I was hurt? He was too empathic. I pulled away my hand. "I told you. I broke a glass."

"How?"

"None of your goddamned business." I wanted to shake him. "What does it matter how?"

He spoke with his unbearable kindness. "The person I fear you're going to hurt is yourself."

I was so mad my voice cracked. "That's the stupidest thing you've said yet."

"I can't force you to come back," Tager said. "Even if I could, it would do no good. I'm sure you can make me believe whatever you want about your mental state. But you wouldn't have come here if you didn't want help."

I spoke bitterly. "I'm a malfunctioning machine. I need an overhaul."

His expression softened. "You're no machine."

I pulled off my other glove and held out my hand, palm up, so he could see the socket in my wrist. "Machine."

"Your implants don't make you less human. They just extend the gifts you were born with."

"Gifts? Gifts?" I dropped my arm. "When someone I know hurts, I hurt. When someone wants to hurt me, I feel it. Often I don't even know where it comes from. Do you know what it's like to live that way?" The words escaped before I could stop them. "Do you have any idea what it's like to fly in a Jag squadron? What it's like to feel Aristos when you go into combat? They like to kill us. It's better than sex for them. Or else the pilot is a slave given his one chance for a better life. And I have to kill him." I couldn't stop my voice from shaking. "I feel every Trader I kill. I've died a thousand times and more out there. I can't do anything to myself that hasn't already been done."

"I can only know a part of it," Tager said. "But I've seen what it does to empaths to endure the life you live. That any of you survive is a miracle."

I didn't know what to say. I was tired. Tired. I couldn't talk any more. "I have to go."

"Will you come back?"

"I'll—think about it."

"I'm here every day. You can reach me any time. Day and night, any day."

I nodded. I didn't know what else to say. I didn't know if I could bear to come back.

It was mid-morning when I left the embassy. I walked home along the harbor, watching the ships in their docks. Sailors crowded the piers, strutting in their white pants and striped shirts, their blue caps pulled jauntily down to shade their eyes. Couples and families and singles strolled the beach, played in the water, or lay in golden sand under the golden sky with its shining span of rings. Children ran everywhere in bright clothes, waving puff-cube balloons, laughing and yelling and teasing the street musicians. The smells of food from concession stands mixed with the salty tang of the air. The place was alive, alive and thriving, human, booming and vibrant.

For a long time I stood by a wooden rail on the boardwalk watching the commotion. Gradually I became aware of an odd sensation.

Relief.

For some bizarre reason, knowing Tager thought I was in trouble gave me an incredible sense of relief. Why? Why should I be glad to know I was a mess?

Because if I was sick, I could be cured.

That was the crux of it. A problem could be fixed. If no problem existed, that would mean the way I had been feeling was normal, not something I could change. I didn't know if I could have lived with that.

Maybe, just maybe, I could go back to see Tager.

Eventually I started to walk again. I looked forward to getting out of my uniform and relaxing in the quiet of my apartment. The harbor was only a kilometer from the building where I lived, so it didn't take long to get home.

As I neared the building, I saw several people standing on the steps. It wasn't until I had almost reached them that their identities filtered past my preoccupation, and I understood why they were staring at me. It was Jarith and his friends, including Rebeka and Hilt. I had forgotten Jarith invited me to the beach.

I stopped in front of them, standing awkwardly. "I'm sorry I'm late. I hope you haven't been waiting long."

Jarith was staring at the bands on my jacket. "No, not long."

I pushed my hand through my hair. "I'm afraid I wouldn't be much company today. Perhaps you should all go without me."

They nodded. No one seemed to have any idea what to say. Jarith's embarrassment practically shouted at me; he felt like an utter fool, an idiot who had been lunatic enough to ask an Imperial Primary on a date.

This is no good, I thought. I smiled at him. "Would you like to come up?"

Jarith blinked. "To your apartment?"

"Yes."

He reddened. "Oh." Then he smiled. "Okay."

The others looked at him, then at me. Rebeka cleared her throat. "Well. We'll—um—see you later, Jar."

When he nodded, the others bowed slightly in my direction and left—all except Hilt, who was the one I most wanted to disappear.

"I'd like to talk to you," Hilt said. He glanced at Jarith, then back at me. "In private."

Given what I had almost done to him, I owed him that. "All right."

We walked to the other side of the steps and stood in the shade of a tree. "What is it?" I asked.

"Are you going to tab us?" Hilt asked.

Tab them? "What do you mean?"

"For the things we said. On the hike."

Then I understood. He wanted to know if I intended to report them. It was a legitimate question. I knew officers who would add their comments to their files.

"No," I said. "I'm not going to do anything."

"Why not?"

I shrugged. "You have a right to voice your opinions."

He spoke bitterly. "Do we?"

I wanted to say, "Of course you do." But it wouldn't come out. So instead I said, "You talked about things I needed to hear. None of it will go farther than me."

"Swear."

I frowned. "What does that mean?"

"You Jagernauts claim to live by a code of honor. Swear on that code you're telling the truth."

Who was he, to question my word? "The hell with you."

He snorted. "I figured as much."

Stop it, I told myself. "All right. I swear it on my honor as a Jagernaut."

He blinked. After a moment, he glanced at my hand. "How is it?"

"Fine."

"You could have killed me, couldn't you?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you?"

I stared at him. "You must really think I'm a monster."

He shook his head. "Believe it or not, I respect people who are willing to fight for what they believe. But to me, you represent the worst of the oppressor. My parents spent ten years in prison when Ruth-2 was absorbed into the Imperialate. Their only crime was that they protested Imperial Space Command descending on us when we had done nothing but live productive, peaceful lives."

Ten years? No wonder he didn't like me. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry won't give back those years to them." He swallowed. "Or to me."

Something in his voice made my heart lurch. "How old were you when they took your parents?"

He spoke tightly. "Four."

Gods. I knew ISC dealt harshly with its critics, but what Hilt described was beyond reason. "You're right, I can't give you back those years. But I won't forget what you've told me."

"So what? What will that change?"

"Maybe more than you know."

He shrugged. "Maybe." He didn't sound convinced.

After Hilt left, I walked back to Jarith and tried to smile. For him, it even came naturally. We went inside the lobby, to a set of glass doors made from doubled panes. I took out my pass, a square card with my fingerprints etched on it, and slid it into a slot on the doors. A scanner whirred as it swept its laser over the card. Then the doors glided open.

We stepped into a glass-enclosed room. "Top floor," I said. The doors shut and the room lifted silently. The liquid crystal between the double panes rearranged in response to electric fields produced by the lift, changing the polarization of the glass so we could see through it. Below us the lobby spread out in an elegant view of plush carpets and gilded furniture. The lift rose through the roof and up the outside of the building, giving us a spectacular view of treetops and countryside.

Jarith and I stood in silence. His nervousness hung like mist in the air.

"How did your test go?" I asked.

"I got a pass plus." His face relaxed. "With high marks on music theory."

"Well. Good." I wasn't sure what to say. It had been over a quarter of a century since I had worried about tests.

The lift opened onto a corridor. Only one door showed in the hall, an old fashioned wooden one with a copper knob. When we reached it, I slid my card into a slot under the keyhole. The door swung inward with a click.

As we walked inside, Jarith's mouth fell open. "This is beautiful."

I smiled. The room no longer seemed dark. Amber sunlight and ringlight poured through the windows, and the giltwood shone.

"I like it." I closed the door and went to the bar. "Would you like a drink?"

He came to the other side of the counter. "Do you have rootberry juice?"

"Good gods, no. How can you drink that stuff?"

He laughed. "It's good."

My heart melted at his angel's smile. For him, I would have Pako order rootberry juice.

"How about mineral water?" Jarith asked.

"That I have." After I poured him a glass, I pulled out the whiskey for myself. Then I changed my mind and poured myself a glass of fizzy water instead.

We sat together on the sofa. I managed to keep my hands off of him until he finished his drink, but when he leaned forward to put his glass on the table, I trailed my fingers through his hair. He glanced around with a smile. Then he sat back and reached for me, sliding his arms around my waist. As I put my arms around his neck, he bent his head to mine. And that was when I found out how rootberry drinkers kiss. No wonder they all guzzled so much of that stuff.

After a while we paused and just sat hugging each other. I laid my head against his shoulder, filled with an incredible relief. Gods, I had been lonely.

Jarith murmured against my ear. "You don't feel like a Primary."

I nuzzled his neck. "How do I feel?"

"Good."

I sighed. "Ai, Hypron, it's been so long."

Jarith went rigid. After waiting for him to relax or say something, I leaned back in his arms. "What's wrong?"

He watched my face. "Why did you say that?"

I tried to recall what I had said: It's been so long. "I haven't had much company lately."

He studied my face as if he were searching for an answer. Then he reddened. "I guess I'm just nervous. I can't believe I'm here like this with you."

I touched his face. "I'm glad you are."

He took my hand, curling his fingers around mine, and drew me into another kiss. When we came up for air, I smiled. "I think this is where I ask if you want to see my etchings."

Jarith looked intrigued. "Ask away."

So I did. He didn't demur.

My bedroom was like an atrium, airy and full of plants. Arched windows graced the walls, with giltwood frames and copper fittings, and a skylight above let in more light. Lying on the bed among fluffy white pillows and blankets was like being enveloped in clouds.

Jarith and I curled together, bare skin against bare skin, and explored each other, taking our time in the afternoon light that slanted through the windows. He fit perfectly into me, his hips stroking my thighs and his hands stroking my skin. I moved with him, then slowed down, holding myself at the tantalizing edge, hanging there with him until we both gave in and surged to a crest that broke with gratifying intensity.

Afterwards we lay among the comforters, Jarith on his back with his eyes closed and I fitted into the curve of his arm.

* * *

"Soz?"

I stirred drowsily.

"Soz, wake up."

"Hmmm . . . ?"

"It's dinner time," he said.

I made a protesting noise. He nudged me, sliding his hands over my body. At first he was trying to wake me up, but his touch soon turned into caresses.

I sighed. "Ah, Hypron . . ."

His strokes stopped with an abruptness that jolted me awake. I opened my eyes, aware of the cool air against my side. Jarith was sitting up in bed, staring straight ahead.

I tugged his arm, trying to pull him back down. "What's wrong?"

He looked at me. "That's the second time you've done that."

"Done what?"

"Called me Hypron."

My pleasant drowsiness vanished. "I called you Hypron?" But yes, now that I thought about it, I had said Hypron. "I'm sorry."

He lay next to me and drew the comforter over us both. "Who is Hypron?"

Lying under the blankets, cradled in his arms, I felt safe, maybe safe enough to tell him what he wanted to know. I crept up to that hidden place in my mind as if I were edging open a drawer. A sun floated in there, dimmed and dark. I closed the drawer.

"Soz?" Jarith regarded me with an odd look, like a person who thought he had won a sweepstakes and then learned it had all been a mistake.

"Hypron was my husband," I said.

"Was?"

I spoke gently. "I wouldn't be here with you now if another man was in my life."

The tension in his arms eased. "Why did you leave him?"

"What makes you think I left him?"

"Who in his right mind would leave you?"

Wryly I said, "I'm glad someone in the universe feels that way."

"Soz—" His mind brushed mine. "Why do you hurt so much?"

"Hypron died three years ago." There. I had said it. The world hadn't ended. "It was less than a year after we married."

"I'm sorry."

I tried to shrug, which was my usual response, but it was hard to shrug with Jarith holding me so close. So instead I gave a far more honest reply. "So am I."

"May I ask what happened?"

It was a moment before I answered—but I did answer. "My squad was checking on a colony in T-Hea sector. He was an agriculturist there." Hypron. He had made me smile from the moment I saw him. And I hadn't been able to keep my hands off him. It wasn't that he was particularly handsome, though to me he had always looked irresistible with his mischievous grin. Something about him made me feel good, that deep down good that warms you everywhere.

"We married two weeks after we met," I said. "We didn't know—the colonists had lousy medical care, and the immune system treatments he received hadn't taken properly. By the time we realized what had happened, it was too late." My voice caught. "So he died."

"Ah, Soz, I'm sorry." He rested his head on mine, holding me under the blankets. And finally I opened that mental drawer with the dim sun inside. The memories were there, recollections of such joy and pain. But I could look at them. Today I could look at them.

After a while I said, "When I first met you, I thought you were an empath."

"I am. Actually, Empathic Healer is my designation in the Kyle registry."

I lay warm in his arms. "I thought so."

He spoke softly. "When other people hurt, emotionally, I can't bear it. I have to try to reach them, to sooth them. But I almost never know if I do any good."

I kissed him. "You do."

"You're all three."

"All three?"

"Empath, healer, telepath." He touched my hair. "I feel like I'm standing in a nova when you let down your barriers."

"I let down my barriers?"

"When we made love."

"Oh." I would have to watch that. Then again, maybe I shouldn't. A person should have a time in her life when she could relax her defenses.

A disembodied voice cut into our conversation. "Soz."

Jarith nearly jumped out of the bed. "Who is that?"

I laughed softly. "Just my mesh node." Raising my voice, I said, "Pako, not now."

Pako's voice came out of a comm discretely set in the wall across the room. "Qox is about to broadcast a speech."

For flaming sake. I had told Pako to let me know when news involving Qox came on. So of course the confounded Emperor had to give a speech when I was in bed with Jarith.

"All right," I grumbled. "Play it."

The holoscreen across the room came on, projecting an image of the puma crouched to attack. The Trader anthem began to play, its haunting strains filling the room. How such a hideous people create such a beautiful piece of music, I had no idea.

Jarith shuddered. "Why do you want to watch this?"

"I have to know what they have to say." It was true, however much I hated it.

"Every time I see them, I feel like I'm—" He paused, searching for a word. "Like I'm being—"

"Raped?"

He gave me a startled look. "Yes."

The puma reformed into an image of two people. But neither was Ur Qox. The man who stood on the left was Kryx Quaelen, the Highton Trade Minister.

The speaker, the man at the podium, was Jaibriol.

Jarith got out of bed and pulled on his pants. "I can't watch this. Not here. I'm sorry. I'll wait for you in the living room."

Why did Jaibriol have to trespass into my life again, just when I had a chance to forget him? I got up and went to the closet, grabbing the first thing I touched, a simple shift. "You don't have to go." I pulled the dress over my head. "I'll leave. You can stay here."

"Why don't we both go into the living room?"

I understood then. He didn't want the Hightons in the place where we had made love. "All right."

I sat on the sofa watching the holoscreen while Jarith made himself a drink. Jaibriol's speech had little substance, just the usual Trader business about how wonderful they all were. It didn't sound like him. That wasn't what chilled me, though. To someone who didn't know him, which meant most of the galaxy, he probably appeared like a normal Highton. But I had seen him from the inside, that night on Delos. The man giving that speech was drugged.

Jarith sat next to me, holding his drink. Whiskey. He took a long swallow, watching the screen like a man in a trance, unable to look away. But he hardly noticed Jaibriol. It was Quaelen who mesmerized him. What power did the Hightons have, that they could terrorize us even through a broadcast? Was it the language of their bodies, the cadence of their voices, the flexing of their hands? At some level, we recognized them. Seeing Quaelen chilled me. Why was he with Jaibriol?

A horrible thought came to me. Maybe Ur Qox put Jaibriol in Quaelen's care. The Emperor of Eube, the monstrous leader of the Traders, carried the recessive genes of an empath. He was half Rhon, inheriting the DNA only from his mother, so none of his traits manifested. But he had every gene unpaired. Did he feel some trace of empathy, enough to have compassion for his son? Perhaps he gave Jaibriol to Quaelen because he couldn't make himself to force his son into the role he had sired Jaibriol to play.

I didn't want to imagine Jaibriol's life with Kryx Quaelen as his "mentor." I could guess what happened; Jaibriol refused to give the speech and Quaelen drugged him into compliance, maybe using threats or physical force as well. The worst of it was that Quaelen didn't need drugs or threats. He could easily record enough data to create a convincing simulation of the Highton Heir that would give whatever speech Quaelen wanted—if it were only Jaibriol's words he desired to control.

Jarith sat next to me, his face ashen as he downed his drink. Finally I said, "Pako, turn off the broadcast."

As the screen darkened, Jarith glanced at me, relief washing out from his mind. "You have to watch every speech they give?"

I grimaced. "Unfortunately. 'Know your enemy' and all that."

"It was bad enough when Qox had no heir. At least we could hope he would be the last of his line. But with his son materializing out of nowhere—" Jarith shuddered. "I wonder if it will ever end."

I didn't see how it could. If Qox hadn't produced an heir, another Highton would have claimed the title. The new Emperor would be just as bad. The Hightons would never evolve into a gentler people. Aristos were genetically programmed to be Aristos. Nor would time dilute their gene pool. Their obsession with the purity of their bloodlines came from far more than arrogance. They truly were a pathological strain of life; when they reproduced in a way to expand their gene pool, having children with their providers, they bore offspring they were driven to destroy.

Now Jaibriol stood there, drugged and vulnerable, the one person in this star-spanning war of hatred who could end it, either by coming to the peace table—or by bringing Imperial Skolia to its knees.

XI
A Time To Speak

"Many people survive far worse," I said. "I only lived through three weeks of it."

Tager regarded me. "You think three weeks instead of three years makes your emotional scars any less valid?"

I regarded him from the safety of my post near the bookshelf. In the three times I had come to see him, I had never sat down. It made me feel vulnerable. He usually stood as he did now, near his desk, neither crowding nor pressuring me.

"Look," I said. "Most providers live their entire life in captivity. What happened to me was nothing."

He came over to me. "You're wrong."

"I'm trained to—"

"Bullshit."

I blinked, startled as much by his intensity as by his reaction. Both were out of character. "Why do you say that?"

"No training in the universe could make that 'nothing.' Yes, your armor is strong. But a human being lives underneath that armor. You were tortured and sexually assaulted, and the fact that you're a Primary, that you're trained to endure hardship, that other people have experienced it over a longer period of time—none of that lessens your injury."

"It was ten years ago. I should have been over it a long time ago."

"Why?"

Why? That maddening question again. "Because time heals wounds."

"Only if you treat the wound." His voice gentled. "Repressing the experience is a survival mechanism, a way to keep functioning. But no matter how much you deny it, it will affect you. It can hurt your self-esteem, hamper your ability to function, make it hard to maintain relationships."

"You think I have problems relating to people because of that?"

"It's possible."

I stepped back from him, feeling crowded. "I'm just overly sensitive."

"Why do you say that?"

I snorted. "I saw a holomovie last month. It was one of those 'Jagernaut goes amok' things. It made me furious. I walked out and ruined it for the people with me. Then I almost busted someone in the face just because he said my attitude annoyed him. You don't call that overreacting?"

"No," Tager said. "Not given the combat experiences you've had."

"The people with me thought I was crazy."

"The fact that they didn't know why you reacted that way doesn't invalidate your response."

Why couldn't I make him see? "I almost stabbed a man in the heart just for being obnoxious."

"You almost stabbed him," Tager said, "because he reminded you of a hideous experience where you were repeatedly and violently brutalized."

Did he believe Hilt had triggered my memory of Tarque? I didn't want a dead Highton to have so much power over me. "That can't be true."

"You had no control over what happened when Tarque kidnapped you," Tager said quietly. "If you were robbed of material possessions, you could replace them. If you've been robbed of your self-respect, of your sense of worth and security, where do you get those back?"

"I knew the danger when I went to Tams. I should have been more careful." I voiced the thought that had pressed on me for so long. "What happened was my own fault."

"The problem was never yours." He regarded me steadily. "It's not your fault. No matter what he said to you, what he called you, what anyone has ever said—it's not your fault."

I was testing mental ground I had avoided for years. "Why would it all stir up now, when I've been fine for so long?"

"What makes you think you've been fine?"

"Of course I've been fine."

"Then why," Tager asked, "was it seven years before you could have a serious relationship with a man?"

"You mean Hypron?"

He nodded. "Seven years is a long time for anyone to stay alone. For an empath it's almost unheard of."

I almost objected. I had always avoided large groups or situations where I had to deal with the emotions of people I didn't like. But I knew what Tager meant. In love, empathy was a gift, especially with another empath. The lack of that intimacy created a loneliness that hurt like a wound. Jarith and I shared a bond that fulfilled me on a level I couldn't reach with a normal person. I thought of the locked file in my mind, festering in the dark. I knew what had shaken it, releasing this barrage of memories I wanted to hold back. Jaibriol Qox.

All I said was, "It can't all be Tams."

For once Tager didn't disagree. "Going into combat against Aristos, feeling people die—it has to be a nightmare." He regarded me with that compassion of his that seemed to have no limit. "You've lived through hell a thousand times. That you've survived, psychologically intact, is miraculous."

I stared at him. Nothing about me was miraculous. I was a mess. "Everyone has troubles. They don't go around pointing Jumblers at their head."

"Primary, it's a—"

"Soz," I interrupted.

"Soz?"

"That's my name. Soz."

"Well. Good. Soz."

That was his only outward reaction, a pleasant nod. But I caught his true response even though he thought he masked it. His pulse leapt. He had made a breakthrough with me, a big one. And that mattered to him. It mattered.

"Why?" I asked.

He blinked. "Why is your name Soz?"

"No. Why do you care what happens to me?"

"Because you're a remarkable person."

"How can you think I'm remarkable? You hardly know me."

He smiled. "I'm trained to understand people."

"It's more than training."

He regarded me curiously. "Why do you say that?"

I searched for the right words. "You naturally care about people. I'm not used to that. I'm used to Traders. Or ISC politics." I grimaced. "Both get pretty vicious." I thought of Rex, Hypron, my first husband Jato. "When I do find love, it doesn't . . .stay." I winced. "The only person I'm capable of maintaining a relationship with is a boy half my age who has no political opinions and looks as different from an Aristo as is humanly possible."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's not normal."

"Why not?"

Why did he always ask me that? "I should have a more mature lover." Like Rex. But Rex didn't want me anymore.

"Why?"

"I don't know why. Because it's embarrassing when doddering Jagernauts fawn over beautiful young people, that's why."

Tager actually laughed, as if I had made a joke. "I would hardly call you doddering."

"I'm almost forty-eight."

"I would have guessed younger." He regarded me. "Even forty-eight is young for your rank."

I shrugged. "I'm good at what I do."

"Why does that make you angry?"

"Angry? It doesn't make me angry." That was a lie and I knew it and Tager knew it. Yet until this moment I had never consciously thought that my rank made me angry. Why should it?

I spoke slowly, as if I wee reading a book I had owned for years but never summoned the courage to open. "He sent me to Tams knowing what could happen. He sent me out there on the front lines, for years, far longer than most officers, and he sent out my brother Althor, and he sent out my brother Kelric." I forced myself to go on. "And Kelric never came back."

Tager spoke quietly. "Who is 'he'?"

"My brother."

"Althor?"

I shook my head. "No. My half-brother. Kurj. The Imperator."

Tager paled. I had more than shaken him this time, I had thrown him into an earthquake. But he was right. I was angry. Angry. The words came, breaking out of the dam I had put around them.

"I lost my first child," I said, "The only child I've ever conceived, because Kurj told me that if I left active duty, I abdicated my claim to his title. I lost my first husband because of it, I lost Rex because he didn't want to be my crippled consort, I lost my baby brother to death and my older brother to distrust, I lost my ability to relate like a normal human being—" My voice shook. "Kurj would take my soul if he could. He has no right."

It was a long moment before he answered. That he spoke at all was a marvel. His position was the nightmare of every heartbender, knowing he could bring down the Imperator's wrath with one wrong word. I never intended to tell Kurj I had seen Tager, but Tager could never be sure of that. Yet he didn't back down, not even now, when he knew the danger. And in that he earned my respect forever.

"Why does he ask so much of you?" Tager asked.

"Because if I can't give it to him, I'll never be strong enough to face Ur Qox." I spread my arms out from my body. "It's not like I can say, 'Oh, I changed my mind. I don't want to do this anymore.' If neither Althor nor I follows Kurj as Imperator, who will? Who has the training, the Rhon mind, the knowledge, all that combined?" I dropped my arms by my sides. "A thousand worlds. How many people on each? A thousand? A million? Ten billion? Do I have to carry the burden of every one of their damned lives?"

He let out a careful breath. "You're the Imperial Heir."

"One of them. There are two." Two left. Out of three. "How do you like that? The future of the universe may be in the hands of a crazy woman."

"You think you're crazy?"

"Aren't I?"

"No." He spoke as if he were walking through a forest of fragile, crystalline trees with branches that might break at the slightest touch, their fractured ends sharp and deadly, ready to pierce his body. "Injured, yes. You're suffering from so many forms of stress disorder I'm not sure I could count them. Even for a psion, you're extraordinarily sensitive. You'll probably never be able to endure crowds or their uglier emotions without withdrawing emotionally. But crazy? No. Not at all. To have experienced what you have and still function takes a phenomenal strength of mind."

He stood watching me with that incredible empathy of his and I didn't know what to say. So I just looked at him. And he let me. He didn't push, didn't crowd, didn't retreat, didn't turn away.

Finally I said, "Well." It wasn't the most articulate response, but it would do. Tager smiled as if I had said something intelligent.

I walked to a corner of his office where the walls met at an acute angle. A shelf there held a small mirror, an old style square of silvered glass inside a jade frame. As I looked at my reflection, I could almost see Kurj behind me, always watching, always waiting, never satisfied.

Watch carefully, brother, I thought. Or I may surprise you.

* * *

When Jarith came into the bedroom, I was just waking up. I lay in the warm sheets, absorbing the sight of him walking across the room. It was a nice view. He wasn't wearing anything but his pants. The hairs on his muscled chest caught the sunlight like a dusting of gold. His face was flushed, though. Red. Really red. In fact, he looked frantic. He was staring intently at the pile of our clothes on the floor by the bed. When he reached it, he searched rapidly through the garments, throwing them here and there.

I peered over the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?"

He jumped up. "You're awake."

I smiled. "Just barely. Come on back and make us sleepy again, hmmm?"

"Soz." His face turned even redder. "We have company."

"Company? What do you mean?"

He motioned toward the living room. "When I woke up, I went to get a drink—and she was there. Reading a holobook."

"Someone is inside my apartment?" What the hell? I scrambled out of bed and scooped up the underwear and jumpsuit Jarith had tossed on the floor after he peeled them off me. "Who is it?"

He found what he was looking for, his sweater. "She says her name is Cya Liessa."

I stopped and straightened up. "Ah."

He yanked his sweater over his head. "Ah?"

"That explains your reaction."

"It does?"

I laughed softly. "She affects everyone that way." I finished dressing and went to meet my guest.

I saw her as I came through the archway that opened into the living room. She was standing by a window, looking out at Jacob's Shire. Gold hair poured over her arms, back, and hips like spun sunlight streaked with gold. It glistened in the ringlight. She wore a rose-hued dress, Foreshires style, with the same lace and straps that felt so awkward on me. On her, it looked spectacular. She had the face of an angel, the body of an erotic holomovie goddess, and the grace of a ballet dancer, which she used to do for a living, performing under the assumed name of Cya Liessa.

"My greetings, Mother," I said.

Jarith made a strangled noise behind me. "Mother?"

She turned to us. "Sauscony." Her gaze shifted to Jarith, who was standing slightly behind me and to my right, as if for protection from this apparition that had shown up in my apartment. A smile tugged up her lips. "I've met your friend."

Even at forty-eight, I felt guilty having my mother find me with my lover. "How did you get inside?"

"Pako let me in."

Before Jarith and I had gone to sleep, I had told Pako we weren't to be disturbed. Why would it let her inside? True, its Evolving Intelligence tried to anticipate my wishes. But even I wasn't sure in this case. "What did it tell you?"

"That you weren't available, but I should wait." She glanced at Jarith. "I can come back . . ."

"No. Don't do that." I motioned at the bar across the room. "Would you like a drink?"

Sauscony.

Her thought came into my mind as clear as sunlight, and brought my memories rushing in of Lyshriol, my father's world, where I had grown up. Home. I saw the silvery plains rippling from the village of Dalvador to the Backbone Mountains in the west and the huge mountain range we called Rider's Lost Memory in the north. Shimmerflies flitted over the plains, their gauzy wings iridescent in the sunlight. Home, with all its love and pain, the joy and loss, the place where I had retreated in my childhood, whenever I needed succor, to the nurturing arms of the golden woman who had given me birth.

Behind me Jarith made a soft noise, as if he had seen a beautiful picture. He touched my shoulder. "Soz, I have a music lesson this afternoon. I should go practice."

I turned to him. He was smiling, no longer red-faced. But sad too. Why was he sad? And why did he have to practice? He had been playing his stringed lytar all morning.

"Can I call you this evening?" he asked.

"Yes. Of course." I started to kiss him, then remembered who was watching us and decided to leave the kissing for later. "I'll talk to you then."

Jarith gathered up his things from the bedroom. When he tried to leave my apartment, he ran into my mother's bodyguards, two Jagernauts hulking outside the door. As they searched him, Jarith gave me a puzzled look.

Sorry, I thought. She's a dancer. A celebrity. They're being careful. It was a lame excuse. My mother hadn't danced for years. I hid the real reason for the search from him. More than one "friend" of our family had tried to smuggle out holofilm of our private lives, records that brought a phenomenal price on the media black-market. Explaining that would mean telling him why, and I didn't want to contaminate what I had with Jarith by revealing I was a member of the Ruby Dynasty.

When Kurj chose an heir, that person would spend the rest of his or her life as he, my aunt, and my parents lived now, guarded day and night. I didn't want that prison. Maybe someday I would have to accept those constraints, but for now I still had a choice.

When the guard finished checking Jarith, she bowed to him. "You may go through."

He blinked, seeming more surprised by the bow than by the search. Then he glanced at me and smiled. "See you tonight?"

"Tonight," I said.

After Jarith left, I went to the bar and poured a glass of ale. "Want some?" I asked my mother.

She shook her head, rippling her glorious hair. "No, I'm fine." Ringlight glimmered on her skin and reflected off its metallic sheen the same way light did off Kurj's skin. Her eyes had gold irises and black pupils exactly like his did, at least under the shield of his inner lids. Although she hadn't inherited the inner lids from my grandfather, she and Kurj could otherwise have been twins. But where Kurj was hard, my mother glowed. I longed to go to her, to lay my head in her lap as I had so often done as a child. Except I wasn't a little girl anymore, I was a grown woman, and I had no intention of running to my mother every time I stubbed my toe.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

She smiled. "Well, I happened to be on Forshires, so I thought I would—"

"Mother." I clunked my glass on the counter. "You have no reason to be on Foreshires Hold. So why are you here?"

She came to the bar and sat in a tall chair, sliding onto it easily despite its height; she was taller than me, taller than my sisters, as tall as my father. She spoke with the gentle voice that had comforted my night fears when I was little. "Kurj told me about Rex. I'm sorry."

I ran my finger around the top of my glass. "He knew the risks."

"Sauscony. I'm not Kurj."

I looked up at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're hurting. I can feel it."

"It's personal." When she started to speak, I put up my hands. "I mean it. Let it go."

"All right." She watched me with an expression I knew well. She was casting around for a subject that wouldn't make me edgy, trying to find a way to talk to her daughter. The older I got, the more often I saw that look on her face.

"Your friend Jarith is very handsome," she said.

"I guess."

Young, though, she thought, reaching for the closeness of a mental link.

Leave it, Mother.

Sauscony, I'm not your enemy.

Block, I thought. The synapse psicon flashed, taking away her concern.

My mother looked frustrated, but she said nothing, just watched me with concern. I scowled and stuck my glass under the fount, refilling it with ale. Then I stalked out from behind the counter and went to sit on the couch. After a moment, she came over and sat in one of the armchairs. She looked like a picture, an artist's vision of beauty, her body relaxed in perfect lines, her angel's face pensive. I wondered if she had any idea how hard it was being her daughter.

"What's it like?" I asked.

She regarded me curiously. "What is what like?"

"Being loved by everyone who meets you."

Incredulity. It broke over me in waves. "Where did you get the idea I'm loved by everyone who meets me?"

"Aren't you?"

"No."

I hesitated. "Can I ask you something personal?"

"That's a bit of a double standard isn't it?"

I stiffened. "Fine. Never mind."

"Sauscony." She spread her hands. "Go ahead."

"What's it like to be loved by a Rhon psion?"

The change that came over her face was as spectacular as it was subtle. I hadn't realized how tense she had become until it eased out of her posture like water running out of a cup. She answered softly, "Your father completes me."

"What about sex?"

She reddened. "I think that's enough personal questions."

"Sorry."

After a moment, her voice lightened. "Let me put it this way. Having ten children was easy."

Can I ask you something else? I thought.

She gave me a wry look. That depends.

About Kurj.

Suddenly she was stiff again. What about him?

Was it really an accident?

Was what an accident? Her agitation rippled against my mind. How can I talk to you, Sauscony, if you keep asking me half questions?

Grandfather's death. Was it really an accident?

She practically snapped out of her chair, like a coil compressed too tight, releasing in a burst of energy. She went to the window and gazed at Jacob's Shire. "Of course it was an accident."

"Kurj must have known he could overload the link." That had been fifty-five years ago. Now he was one of three people who powered the Kyle web: Kurj, my aunt, and my father. It wasn't coincidence that they were so different. If the minds in that link were too similar, it set up a resonance like a driven oscillator, forcing their minds into bigger and bigger fluctuations until the link shattered. Fifty-five years ago, only my grandparents had been in it. Kurj had tried to become the third.

"He must have known," I said. "The odds that both he and Grandfather would survive were too low. Kurj knew it. And he was younger. Stronger. The chances of him surviving were greater."

My mother whirled around. "Stop it!"

I couldn't stop. I wanted to more than anything else, but my life might someday depend on knowing the truth. "Why has he set Althor and me against each other? Because he thinks we'll be too busy fighting each other to turn on him? Does he fear one of us will try to assume his title by committing fratricide?" I forced out the words. "Like Kurj committed patricide?"

My mother came over—and slapped me across the face. Her body was shaking as she sank into her chair. I put my palm against my stinging cheek, hating myself for what I needed to know.

"You will never say those words again," she told me. "Neither your accusations nor your filthy insinuations. Kurj's father was an ISC scout, a good and decent man who died in the line of duty."

I swallowed. "Mother—I've seen the files."

She looked like an injured shyback deer. "What?"

"The records. The same ones Kurj found the day he killed the man who fathered him." Gods, I hated this. Kurj was right; we learned to survive—not only against the Traders, but against each other as well. The same talents of mine that Kurj had so often utilized when he had me spy against the Traders worked just as well against him. "Kurj's legal father couldn't have sired him. The man wasn't a Rhon psion."

She looked away from me. "My first husband carried at least one copy of every Rhon gene. The doctors selected the proper ones from him. Then we made a baby."

How many times had I heard that "official" explanation of why Kurj was Rhon even though his father wasn't. The Imperialate needed Rhon heirs, and we were their breeding stock. Dangerous recessives in our DNA made inbreeding risky, but clipping out those recessives deleted what made us Rhon. After a long search, a man was found who carried variants of our genes. His were different enough to decrease the probability that recessives would kill or deform the children he had with a woman of the royal family. He didn't have two of every gene, so he wasn't Rhon, but he had at least one of each. With medical help, he could sire a Rhon child. My grandparents arranged a marriage between him and my mother. Never mind the almost zero probability of finding such a man. Kurj was considered living proof that he had existed.

I met my mother's gaze. "Those records—they include the analysis of your first husband's DNA. He carried almost none of the Rhon genes. You know that. You know Kurj can't be his son."

A tear ran down her face. ""What difference does it make? It's done. Over with."

I wanted to hide, to pretend it had been a mistake, that I was wrong. The last time I had seen her cry had been at the memorial service for my brother Kelric. But denying the truth wouldn't erase it. Kurj trusted neither Althor nor me, and I needed to understand why, for someday our own lives could depend on that knowledge.

I spoke softly. "Please. I need to know."

My mother wiped her face with her hands, then set her hands on her knees. She sat staring at the floor in front of her chair, her eyes clouded.

Finally she looked at me. And she spoke. "When my father was Imperator, he chose Kurj as his heir. Kurj coveted that power, more and more as the years passed. But he never tried to depose my father. He valued family over even power. Values he learned from my first husband, someone he deeply loved. My husband was a good father. My parents chose better for me than I did for myself." She took an uneven breath. "I wasn't like you when I was young, so strong and sure. I made stupid mistakes. Several years after my husband died, I remarried. But I . . .there was violence. I didn't know before I married him, or didn't let myself see, what he was like. When I found out, I was ashamed."

I had never heard my mother speak this way. "So you left him?"

"Imperial heirs don't divorce."

I thought of my first marriage. "Tell that to Jato."

Her voice softened. "I was a fool for feeling that way, I know that now. But at the time I thought I had no choices." She swallowed. "Kurj was so young then, so vulnerable. He saw everything, and he felt helpless to stop it."

Kurj, vulnerable and helpless? "It's hard to imagine."

"He was just a boy." She paused. "At first my husband never hit him. But when Kurj reached puberty, it changed. He was growing so fast, already as tall as me. My husband thought—I don't know. Yes, I do. He saw Kurj as—as—"

"A competitor?"

She watched me with her large eyes, like a dove startled from her hiding place. "Yes." Her voice hardened. "That man beat my child. So I left him."

"What happened to your husband?"

"He went to prison."

"And Kurj?"

"After that he hated anyone he thought might hurt me. What I didn't understand was why he hated himself. Back then I didn't realize how my presence . . .affected him." She rubbed her arms as if she were cold. "Sometimes I think his only stability came from his memories of my first husband. For a quarter of a century—while Kurj gathered his power as an Imperial Heir—he held onto his memories of his father as if they were a lifejacket."

I was beginning to see. "Then he found those files with the identity of his true father."

She nodded, her face pale. "He was enraged. It didn't matter that the Assembly did it in secret, without telling us, by switching my mother's and my eggs, because they were desperate for Rhon psions, and it seemed none of us could have more children. It didn't matter that none of us knew what they had done until long after. He felt betrayed by everyone he loved." Her voice shook. "In his view of the universe, the man who had what he wanted—the title of Imperator—had also taken what he loved more than anything in the world. Someone forbidden. To both of them."

Her hands trembled as she pushed a curl out of her eyes. "Did he say to himself, 'I will kill this man?' I don't believe that. But he knew the risks . . .and he still forced himself into the link." She took a breath. "I found him kneeling by Father's body. He—he was crying." Her voice broke. "When Kurj was a baby, I held him, loved him. Ai, Sauscony, he was my firstborn, my shining light. But he changed. Bit by bit, year by year, decade by decade." She closed her eyes, then opened them again. "Until I lost him."

I spoke softly. "I'm sorry. For all of it."

A tear traced its path down her cheek. "So am I."

XII
A Time To Plant

"Do you want to be Imperator?" Tager asked.

That was dangerous ground. I studied the figurines on his shelf, picking one up, turning the glass statue over in my hand, and placing it back on the shelf. He had a collection of country pieces, each formed in minute detail and color, down to the eyelashes and fingernails. The tiller was bent over, holding a hand plow in his gnarled grip. The planter wore a layered dress that feathered down around her calves. She held up the front, making a bowl with her skirt to carry seeds. The harvester walked along a row of rye-cobs, tall stalks of grain that bent under the weight of their ripe cobs. She held one cob in her hand and carried a bag bulging with more.

"Where did you get these?" I asked.

"A community of Cammish farmers live south of Jacob's Shire," Tager said. "They help support themselves by making the statues."

I turned to him. He was across the room, half sitting on his desk. "They're beautiful pieces."

He had that look again, as if he were trying to decipher my non sequiturs. "Yes. They are."

I walked around the office, looking at his other knick-knacks. "You can till and plant and harvest. Live by the land and seasons, become part of life's cycle." I stopped and regarded him. "Or you can skip all that and put in a food processing plant." Like Kurj processed. People. Cities. Planets. All were unfinished material he fitted to his needs. I motioned at the Cammish figurines. "Growing food from the land is inefficient."

Tager smiled. "It tastes better."

"Maybe taste is a luxury we can't afford."

"Why?"

"We don't need it. Food is nourishment, not entertainment."

"We evolved our sense of taste for a reason," Tager said. "Just like we learned to live off the land for a reason. That we have other options now doesn't negate the desire some people to live in the old ways." He watched me. "Maybe it's more than tilling and planting and harvesting. Maybe it satisfies a deeper part of what makes us human."

"Then again," I said. "Maybe it's just a big waste of time."

"Is that what you think?"

I went back to pacing. "I think Skolia needs both. The tillers and the processors."

"Which are you?"

I halted again. "Both. I hope."

He spoke quietly. "That answers 'how.' But not 'Do you want to?'"

Did I want to be Imperator? I knew the answer—but I wasn't ready to meet it. My mind danced around the idea, coming close, moving away, unwilling to commit.

Tager waited. When I just stood there, he tried another tack. "What about your brother Althor?"

I crossed my arms. "What about him?"

"What if Imperator Skolia never makes the choice? What if he dies leaving the question of his heir unsettled?" Tager spoke as if he were walking on a layer of eggshells. "Or what if he waits to let the answer sort itself out?"

"Althor is my brother." My brother, whom I had loved when I was a child, still loved despite everything Kurj had done to drive us apart.

"So is the Imperator," Tager said.

"I know." I had yet to sort out how I felt about that.

Tager sat quietly, patient, not pushing. After a moment I said, "Althor is my parent's second child. Number two out of ten. He left home at eighteen to attend the Dieshan Military Academy."

"So he's also a Jagernaut."

"That's right. I was fourteen when he left. I didn't see him again until he came home to visit." My face relaxed. "He seemed happy to see Lyshriol."

"Lyshriol?"

"My father's home world. We all grew up there."

He looked puzzled. "I don't think I've heard of it."

No reason existed he should have, at least by that name. "We keep it private. It's one of the ancient colonies. It had been isolated for over four thousand years. By the time the Imperialate found it again, the colony had backslid so far they no longer remembered their origins. The only mesh nodes on practically the entire planet are the ones my mother had installed in the house and starport."

"House?"

"Where we lived."

Tager smiled. "Do you mean palace?"

"No. House." I smiled slightly. "My mother changed things as little as possible."

His curiosity lapped around me in waves. "Why?"

"Why meddle with it? It's idyllic."

"Do you miss it?"

That was too a complicated for an easy answer. "Sometimes. But I was so out of place. I always wanted to be a Jagernaut. When I was ten, I could take apart a Jumbler and tell you how it worked. By the time I was twelve, I could derive the equations for inversion. This on a world where armies fought with swords and bows." My brother had essentially ended warfare there when, at the age of sixteen, he had ridden into battle with a laser carbine. "I think Althor struggled with it, too."

"Tell me about him," Tager said.

My memories unfolded like a scrap of parchment found in an old style book bound in leather. I saw Althor in his Jagernaut uniform, a Jumbler on his hip, kneeling on one leg before my father with his head bowed in respect, the traditional greeting that a son on Lyshriol gave his sire when he returned from war. Our father stood there, so proud he looked ready to shout it to the village—and so confused, struggling to understand this son who came home in a starship.

"I was seventeen when he came back," I said. "I thought he was incredible. I wanted to be just like him. Then one day, somehow, somewhere, I passed him. I was a Primary, he a Secondary." Now Kurj watched to see what we would do, Althor and I circling each, so much left silent, unspoken.

"Do you and Althor talk about it?" Tager asked.

"We don't have a lot to say to each other." Too much distrust existed for us to share the closeness we had known as children. But the love remained. Althor and I would never plot against each other until only one survived. If Kurj was waiting for us to make his decision for him, he would wait forever. In the end, my mother was the one who suffered, forced to watch the ugly game of power and death played by the children she loved so dearly.

I walked back to the shelves on his walls. "My mother came to see me."

Tager switched gears with his knack for smoothing out my abrupt changes of topic. "How did you feel about it?"

I peered at a vase on one shelf. It was exquisite, molded from rose glass with gold swirls looping through it. The surface glimmered, reflecting different colors when I looked from different directions. It was finely made, so delicately spun.

I glanced at Tager with a frown. "Why do you put this here? If you brushed against the shelf, it could knock off the vase." That work of beauty would shatter on the floor, destroyed by the person who valued it most.

He was watching me as if I were a cipher he wanted to decode. "I'm careful."

"How do you know someone else won't destroy it?" I shook my head. "Some treasures are too precious to put where they can be touched."

"Because they might get hurt?"

"Yes."

"The vase is stronger than it looks. It's fallen before. It didn't break."

I folded my arms, rubbing my hands up and down them as if I were cold. "That doesn't mean it didn't hurt. It can only fall so many times before it breaks inside. If you don't cherish it, protect it—" I pointed at the vase. "Suppose someone comes in here and fights with you for this, someone obsessed with it beyond all reason and sanity? And during the fight the two of you knock over the vase. What will you do when it shatters on the ground? How will you put it back together?"

"I wouldn't fight."

Although I tried to smile, it stretched tightly over my face. "But you're not Rhon."

"No," he said softly. "I'm not."

I went back to staring at his shelves. Tager watched me, giving me time, giving me space. Eventually I said, "Kurj thinks my father is a simpleton."

"Your father is the Imperator's stepfather, isn't he?"

I would have laughed it if hadn't hurt so much. I turned to Tager. "My father was eighteen when my mother married him. Kurj was thirty-five. The wedding took place just days after my grandfather died." Just days after Kurj became Imperator. "Kurj hates him."

"Your father?"

"Yes." But however he felt, he hadn't committed patricide a second time. And now he needed my father, who could power the Kyle web effortlessly, with no danger to the rest of the Triad.

Kurj, my aunt, and my father: the Fist, Mind and Heart of Skolia. Just as two particles could never have the same quantum numbers, so no two minds could occupy the same regions of Kyle space. Kurj's mind was raw and blunt, sheer power. My aunt's was delicacy, intellectual brilliance, a intricate lace of complexity. In Kyle space, she and Kurj could go to the same "places," but how they existed there was so different that their presences never interfered.

They needed three minds in that link. When Kurj and my aunt had supported the Kyle-Mesh alone, they had struggled with the overload of work. Kurj also commanded a military that protected almost a thousand worlds. My aunt served as liaison between the Assembly and a mesh that spanned not only our civilization, but Allied and Trader worlds as well. They had those jobs in addition to the demands of the Kyle-Mesh itself, which never rested, never paused, never eased, but only grew larger each year, filling a voracious ocean as deep as the stars. No one, no matter how ambitious, dedicated, or strong, had the resources to manage that balancing act for long. Eventually it would have killed them, as it had been doing, slowly and relentlessly, before my father turned their Dyad into a Triad.

Regardless of my family's problems, we had to keep the Kyle-Mesh functioning. I would rather die than live in a universe where everyone except a few thousand Aristos were Trader slaves.

I suddenly felt tired. I went to a chair and sat down, sinking into its cushion. Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees and stared at the floor.

Tager came over and sat in the chair next to me. "What are you thinking?"

"About my family." I looked at him. "We're a mess."

He spoke gently. "You're like people without skins living in a universe that makes no accommodation for that. Most everyone has protection, so they have no idea how damaging their normal mode of living is to you. To survive, you have to develop drastic coping mechanisms."

I thought of Jaibriol and his life of solitude. It had protected him, but the price he had paid, that punishing loneliness, was too high. "Those coping mechanisms are tearing us apart."

"You've had the responsibility of defending an empire thrust on you, not by your choice, but because the same traits that make you so vulnerable are also the source of our only protection against the Aristos." Tager shook his head. "Gods, that would strain anyone."

"When we were living together, my parents and us children, we had something." I struggled to find the right words. "I don't know what to call it. A Rhon community? We were happy. Then we all grew up and left home. Reality intruded. My parents have each other, but our community is gone. The rest of us just survive." I regarded him steadily. "I want more than survival."

"If you mean a Rhon mate, a Rhon society—"

"Yes, I know. I won't find it." An image of Jaibriol flickered in my mind. If only you knew, Doctor Heartbender. "Contrary to what the Assembly seems to think, my parents aren't breeding machines. They can't provide fodder for the Mesh forever and then watch the children they love gives their lives for it. What if Althor and I both end up dead? Then what?"

He let out a breath. "I don't know."

I got up and walked over to the shelf with the Cammish figures. "Neither do I." I turned to him. "I want to find an answer. To all of it. To the pain, the anger, the terror. To this war that never ends." I met his gaze. "I want an answer to Tams."

"Do you think you can find it?"

"I think I have a better chance than Althor." Or Kurj. I regarded him steadily. "And having that power is a hell of a lot better than being a victim."

Then I said, "Yes, I want to be Imperator."

* * *

When I entered the lobby of my building, I found a visitor waiting. She was relaxed in an chair reading a holozine, her feet propped up on the onerously expensive table in front of her.

"Helda!" I strode over. "What are you doing here?"

She stood up, a grin spreading across her wide face. "Heya, Soz."

"I almost walked by you." I wasn't used to seeing her out of uniform. Of all the bizarre outfits—she had on blue jeans. She must have bought them in one of the import shops that sold Allied clothes and coffee, Earth's most popular exports with my people. That, and their hamburgers. I doubted a major city existed anywhere that didn't have one of their hamburger places. Sometimes, in my more cynical moments, I was convinced that while we and the Traders were busy hurling planet-melting armies at each other, Earth would quietly take us over by flooding us with "fast food" and convincing us we couldn't live without it.

Helda chuckled. "Some people walk by me on purpose. I just scared away a golden boy." She tilted her head upwards. "Said he would wait up there."

Had Jarith come by? Probably not; I didn't see him anywhere. Although the lobby was open during the day, he couldn't go farther into the building without a pass. And I hadn't given him one.

"Come on upstairs." I smiled. "Maybe we can find this mysterious fellow."

As we walked to the airlift, I spoke carefully. "How is Rex?"

"Good. He has some contraption for his legs. It will let him walk when he learns how to use it."

"Is he happy?" What I really wanted to know was did he have a woman in his life. But I couldn't ask that.

"Ya, he's fine." Helda chuckled. "The usual. All his nurses are in love with him. He often asks for one in particular."

I told myself that didn't hurt. After all, I had Jarith. Then I thought, Oh, cut it out. You know it hurts. So let it. That won't kill you. And it was true, I did have Jarith.

When the lift opened on my floor, I saw Jarith down the hall sitting by my door with his satchel in his lap, reading a holobook. Helda and I went over to him, our feet padding on the carpet.

I smiled as he looked at us. "How did you get the lift to work?"

He stood up, watching Helda. "I don't know. Pako just let me in."

Huh. Interesting. I had never told the computer to let Jarith into the lift. Not that I had any objection. Pako could let him into my apartment if it wanted.

Helda grinned at him. "Heya, Hoiya. We meet again."

Jarith reddened. "My greetings."

"This is Helda," I said. "She flies in my squad."

"Used to." Helda gave me an annoyed look as I opened the door. "We fly nowhere for months."

I glanced at her. "Kurj hasn't sent you and Taas out with another squad?"

Jarith dropped his satchel, his holobooks spilling all over the floor. He flushed and dropped down on his knees to scoop up his things.

Helda and I helped him gather up the mess. When I gave him a questioning look, he wouldn't respond. What had I done? Sometimes it was hard to understand his moods.

Helda thumped a book into his arms. "He sent Taas out with Eighth Squad." She stood up with Jarith and me. "Put me in a think tank. Military strategy. But I miss flying."

I closed the door. "I also."

Jarith crossed the room, leaving us alone. Helda watched him unload his schoolwork on the table. Then she spoke quietly. "Imperator Skolia asked me to give you a message."

Well, that was odd. Using the Mesh was more efficient than sending a courier. If Kurj wanted the message secured, he could pattern it to my brain with a lock only I could release.

I glanced at Jarith. "Perhaps we should wait."

"It's only a few words."

"What?"

"He said: 'Come to HQ immediately. Quietly. Tell no one I ordered it.'"

"That's it?"

"That's it."

So. Kurj reached out his long arm and pulled me back. I could see him, metal in a uniform, setting us all on trajectories that ended in places only he knew. But maybe it was time to face him. Time to calculate my own trajectories. "Why did he send you to tell me?"

"I don't know." Her gaze flicked over my shoulder and her voice changed. "Want to go sightseeing?"

I turned to see Jarith headed our way. When he reached us, I smiled. "Want to sightsee with Helda and me?"

He regarded Helda warily. "All right."

So we went to the boardwalk. We strolled on the piers, bought puff-cube balloons, let them go, laughed a lot, and ran on the beach. The entire time I had an odd feeling, the inexplicable sense that I was seeing an end, though to what I didn't know.

* * *

Jarith sat on my bed. "I like your friend."

I went to the closet and handed it my sweater. The robot arm hung it up. "I thought you were going to run like a wind-antelope the first time you saw her."

"I was." He smiled sheepishly. "But she's all right."

"Is that why you dropped your books this afternoon?"

"Oh. That." He averted his eyes. "No. I was just clumsy."

I came over and sat cross-legged next to him on that bed. "That's not the reason."

"Why do you say that?"

"Something was wrong. I felt it."

"I—it was nothing." He studied the pattern on the comforter.

"Jarith." I turned his face so he had to look at me. "What's wrong?"

"What you said startled me. That's all."

I lowered my arm, puzzled. "What did I say?"

"That name."

"What name?"

"Kurj."

That wasn't a name I wanted to discuss, not with Jarith, not with anyone. Tager had taken all I had to spare on that subject. "What about it?"

"In the context of your conversation it could have only meant one person."

"I'm a soldier. He's my commanding officer."

His look turned incredulous. "Even Primaries don't call the Imperator by his personal name."

That stopped me. Of course I never called him Kurj when he was acting as my CO. But in a casual conversation with Helda it hadn't occurred to me to use his title any more than I would have called one of my other brothers Prince Whatever.

"You live in a penthouse rich even for an Imperial Primary," Jarith said. "You have a rank as prestigious as an admiral even though you're not even thirty. And you know the Imperator."

I got off the bed and walked to the window. Outside, Jacob's Shire rolled out, golden in the setting sun.

"Soz?" Jarith asked.

"I don't know what you expect me to say."

Jarith took a breath. "Imperator Skolia—are you and he—have I presumed—?"

Flaming rockets. He thought Kurj was my boyfriend. I almost laughed. Instead I went back and sat next to him. "You haven't presumed on anything. I've known him for many years, that's all."

"You're older than you look, aren't you?"

"I'll be forty-eight in a few days."

His mouth fell open. "You're kidding."

"No." I squinted at him. "Does that matter to you?"

Jarith shifted his weight. "I don't know. You're older than my mother."

Gods. The next thing I knew, the ISC ethics squad would come looking for me. You're under arrest, ma'am. For cradle theft.

But what he said hurt in another way. I had yet to have a child, and a woman younger than me had a son old enough to father his own children. Although my extended lifespan let me delay childbearing longer than most women, I couldn't wait forever. But I hadn't wanted to start a family while I was flying with the squad, not after what happened the first time.

Jarith watched my face. "Soz?"

I spoke quietly. "I'm not sure how to say this."

He tensed. "Just say it."

"Helda brought me a message from my family. I have to leave for Diesha tonight."

"You're going offworld? Tonight?"

"As soon as I pack."

"Soz, no. Don't go." He put his hands on my shoulders. "Was it what I said? I can handle the age difference."

I took his hands. "It's nothing you said."

He started to add more, then stopped. I felt what he didn't say. He wanted to go with me. Part of me wanted him to come. But it would mean asking him to start over on a strange world where he knew no one. I couldn't press him to make that change unless I was willing to offer him more than what we had now. And I wasn't. Too much remained unsettled in my life.

"You mean a lot to me," I said.

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Say things that sound like a preface to 'I think you should start seeing other people.'"

"I think you should."

Jarith swore under his breath. "Soz, stop it."

"Do you really understand what I do for a living? Every time I go out, I could die. Do you want to live with that?"

"No. But I'm willing to try."

I spoke softly. "I don't know if I am."

He exhaled. Then he drew me into his arms. "Will you come back to Forshires?"

I lay my head on his shoulder. "I hope so."

We held each other for a long time. Finally Jarith lay down on the bed, pulling me with him. We made love in the clouds, floating together one last time.

Part Three: DIESHA

XIII
Fist Of The Web

Helda and I took a commercial flight to Diesha, traveling like civilians, doing nothing to attract attention. Although Kurj had made no stipulations about how I was to arrive, it was obvious he wanted a low-key approach. Why? What was he up to?

We landed far from any terminal at the starport. The passengers all gathered in the cubicle some generous person had dubbed the ship's lounge, a chamber with three chairs and a table bolted to what served as the deck in a gravity field. Glancing out a porthole, I saw a flybus approaching from the distant terminal, speeding on its cushion of air like a black and silver bullet silver.

"Prepare to disembark," the steward said over the com, his pleasant tone a marked contrast to the clipped computer voices on the military transports I usually took to Diesha.

We queued up at the airlock and the steward appeared, a young man in a blue uniform. When he opened the batch, fresh air flooded the ship, a relief after our days of canned air during the flight.

The flybus pulled alongside the ship. As it rose to the airlock, an officer came to stand in its open doorway, a woman in the dusky red uniform of the military police. She carried a laser carbine. Here on the planet dedicated solely to functions of Imperial Space Command, ISC controlled everything.

An accordion bridge unfolded from the flybus to our airlock. After the steward clamped it into place, he smiled at us. "Welcome to the Dieshan Air and Starport, Civilian Terminal. We hope you enjoy your stay here."

The bored police officer didn't look as if she cared whether we enjoyed or loathed our stay. She checked each of us as we entered the flybus, running her scanner over our bodies and luggage. When we finished boarding, the bus retracted its bridge, closed its door, sank down, and headed for the terminal. We all sat in nervoplex seats staring out the windows, the walls, the floor, anywhere but at each other.

A second flybus met us halfway to the terminal. While the two vehicles sat on the tarmac like giant bullets conferring with each other, we disembarked and boarded the second, going through the whole blasted security procedure again.

Helda grumbled as we waited in line to be scanned. "Never again," she muttered. "Never again I come to Diesha as a civilian."

The second bus took us to within ten meters of the terminal. We walked the rest of the way between poles that blinked and beeped at us. The path ended at a security arch framing a doorway. A burly man and a heavyset woman in ISC uniforms staffed the counter beyond.

As I walked through the arch, the man motioned for me to stop. "Baggage check."

I slung my duffel onto the counter. The woman touched a panel on her console and holos formed above my bag, rotating to show the interior, every last detail, including my underwear and other privates.

"Open it," the man said.

Gritting my teeth, I undid the flaps and the duffel fell open. As the man ruffled through my belongings, data scrolled across the woman's console. "Valdoria, Sauscony," she read. "Jacob's Shire, Eos, Foreshires Hold." She glanced at me. "Far from home, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said.

Someone nudged my shoulder, pressing me into the counter. I glanced back to see another passenger pushing by me as she entered the terminal. Although she was dressed as a civilian, the patches on her shoulders indicated her commission in the military. I recognized her from the ship, a woman who had been at the end of the line when we queued up here. Outside, other civilian passengers stood in line, squinting in the harsh sunlight as they waited.

I turned back in time to see the security officer take my wallet out of my duffel. He flipped it open and the mini-album activated, cycling through holos. One of Jarith came up, several of us both, then Helda and Jarith, and finally one of my mother. The man stopped the display, leaving a holo of my mother floating above the wallet screen so it looked as if she was standing on his palm.

"Who is this?" he asked.

None of your damn business. "My mother."

"You're kidding." He handed the wallet to the woman behind the counter, his arm creating ripples of light when it pierced the security field around her console. "Can you get an ID?"

She set my wallet on a flat screen. My mother floated there, smiling and golden. She blurred as a laser played over the holo.

"Correlation complete," the computer said. "Name: Cya Liessa. Occupation: dancer, Parthonia Imperial Ballet. No address given."

"Ballerina, huh?" The man smiled. "She's pretty."

Pretty? That was all he had to say after they invaded my mother's privacy as if we were just some page in a holozine they were reading?

The woman dropped my wallet into my duffel, then closed up the bag and handed it to me. "All right. Move along."

Clenched the handle, I slung the duffel it over my shoulder as I stalked into the arrivals gate. People crowded the chrome and glass area, standing, talking, sitting in chairs, watching the holovid in the corner, boarding speedwalks.

Helda came up next to me. "Pah."

"They give you a hard time, too?"

She scowled. "They are lucky we have orders to be as quiet as mumblemice."

I smiled at the incongruous image of Helda as any kind of mouse. I wouldn't want to be the cat that went after her. "How long until your connecting flight?"

She tilted her head, the familiar blank look flashing across her face as she accessed her node. "Twenty minutes."

Twenty minutes. Then she was off again. "I wish you were staying."

Helda laughed. "Heya, Soz, you getting sentimental?" She motioned at a speedwalk. "Come to my gate."

I didn't want to go with her. I had no idea why, other than an odd sense that if she left, I would never see her again. As we boarded the speedwalk, I spoke quietly. "You and Rex, and Taas at the end there—I was used to being with you day and night. Half the time we were one mind. Now that's gone." I struggled to express feelings that swirled like mist at the edges of vision. "Something is ending, Helda. I don't know what."

"Ending?" The wall behind her slid by as the speedwalk whisked us toward her departure gate. "You sound strange today."

I made myself smile. "I guess so."

We talked about lighter matters after that. She told me what she knew of Taas, who was flying with another squad and developing a reputation as a skilled pilot.

"When you see him again, wish him well for me," I said.

"If you want." She shrugged. "It is more likely you see him first, here at HQ."

"I know. But do it for me anyway. Just in case."

"In case what?"

I didn't know the answer. So I forced a laugh. "You never know what diversions I'll find."

At Helda's gate, passengers were queued up for another flybus. After Helda got through the security arch, she waved at me. I stood inside, behind the bulletproof, laserproof, shatterproof, fist-thick wall of tinted glass and waved back. Then she boarded the bus. Within moments it was just another bullet humming across the tarmac like all the other chromed bullets out there.

I returned to the speedwalk, and this time I strode along, adding my speed to its own so I whipping along. I had no idea I why I was in a hurry, I just wanted to get away from the starport, from this place of leave-takings and endings.

The Magrail platform outside perched on a casecrete tower as tall as the starport. Giant rails arched in the sky, came down to the platform, ran level with it, and then swept up again, over the port in a great curve of silver. The Magtrain hurtled toward the platform, a string of bullet cars, their blue, silver, and black chrome gleaming. As I joined a handful of other travelers, the train stopped and its doors slicked open like a camera shutter. Within moments, we were rushing up and out of the port.

Most of the civilians disembarked in the suburbs. At the perimeter of Headquarters City, we stopped at a platform secured by guards with laser carbines. Armor encased their bodies, making them eight feet tall, giants of black and silver metal, faceless, with opaque screens instead of eyes. By this time I was the only "civilian" on the train.

As the guards entered the car, we all stood. One giant strode over to me, boots ringing on the metal floor. He or she—I didn't know which—spoke through a voice filter that made it sound like a machine. "Identification."

I turned over my hand and tensed my arm, pushing my ID chip out of its sleeve into my palm. The socket on my wrist glinted, marking me as a telop or Jagernaut. I couldn't read the officer's reaction; the armor hid body language and expressions, and the filter took emotional nuances out of the voice. The guard just slid my card into a box at the waist. Although I had been through these checks before, the procedure felt strange today, as if I were being distilled into that small square.

Everyone in the car received clearance to enter Headquarters City. No surprise there. Only someone very naive or very foolish would try to enter the city without proper ID. I disembarked at a platform in the heart of downtown. As the train pulled away, a swarm of automated taxis swooped in, vying for the fare. I ignored them, instead choosing an airtube at the edge of the tower. It lowered me with air jets that slowed my descent. Getting blasted with air that way unsettled many people, and few trusted the tubes not to drop them, but I liked it, probably for the same reason I liked doing loops and rolls when I piloted an aircraft, something about the challenge or maybe just the boost of adrenalin.

I needed a boost. Kurj's odd summons, the impersonal security procedures coming into Diesha, Helda's leaving, the faceless guards in their armor—it all left me with an uncomfortable sensation, as if I were turning into a machine, my humanity strained out and condensed into an ID chip.

At the dispenser in the bottom of the tower, I bought a mirrored visor. It was translucent to my vision, letting me see the city through an amber tinge that muted the harsh sunlight. Anyone looking at me would see only a dark, mirrored strip across my eyes.

Heavy traffic hovered along the streets, but I rode speedwalks instead of flagging a taxi. Pedestrians were everywhere, military personnel. Their visored eyes were blank masks, unreadable, like Kurj's face when his inner lids were lowered.

The tower where I lived had no lobby, just a door that whisked open in response to my ID chip, admitting me into a glass shaft. The lift took me to the top floor and let me out into a corridor with walls of amber glass. Outside, the downtown spread out in a relentless pattern of squares and rectangles both horizontal and vertical, no softening touches of green, just black and silver and white. A flyer appeared from behind the tower, winging so close to the window that the glass vibrated. Then it curved away and out above the city.

Only two people had quarters on this floor: myself, and a retired general who still acted as one of my brother's top advisers on espionage. My door checked my ID chip, fingerprints, and retinal patterns before it opened. The living room looked the same as always, all chrome and glass, with white furniture and gleaming tables.

"Welcome home, Primary Valdoria," a voice said as the door closed behind me.

"Heya, Mak." That name was the closest I had come to personalizing the ISC-MA4K Evolving Intelligence that took care of the place. I dumped my duffel on the floor and collapsed onto the couch. "Any messages for me?" Although Mak had forwarding my mail to Foreshires during my stay there, everything might not have come through yet.

"Two messages," Mak said.

"Is either from Imperator Skolia?"

"No."

Maybe Kurj didn't know I was here. That seemed unlikely; if he wanted me back as badly as Helda indicated, he would have kept track of my arrival. Given his measures to keep his summons secret, I doubted he wanted me to announce my presence.

"Mak, send a message to my parents at the palace." They weren't there; neither liked coming to Diesha. Kurj probably was, though, unless some crisis required him to stay in the city. The palace was the only place secure enough to let him dismiss his bodyguards. High in the mountains, surrounded by wilderness and numerous deadly installations dedicated to protecting it, the place was completely automated. It needed no human staff. That seemed lonely to me, but it gave him what he treasured: privacy—complete, utter privacy.

"Text of message?" Mak prompted.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "My greetings, Mother and Father. I'm back on Diesha to visit Rex. Let's get together while I'm here. Love, Sauscony. End message. Send."

"Sent."

Belatedly, I remembered the girl from the hospital Kurj had "invited" to the palace. What was her name? Cyliessa? No . . . Charissa. That was it. Charissa Deirdre. If she found the message, she might actually forward it to my parents. "Mak, who is living at the palace?"

"Imperator Skolia."

"Anyone else, either now or in the previous five months?"

"A woman named Charissa Deirdre stayed with him for one hundred and six days."

One hundred and six. She must have pleased him. I wondered how she felt about it. Did he repulse her? Had she grown to love him? I supposed it was possible. Love was a bizarre enough emotion to strike in the most unlikely places.

"Where is Deirdre now?" I asked.

"She works in the nursery of the ISC Hospital maternity wing and lives with her parents in Suburb Fourteen."

Her parents? "How old is she?"

"Seventeen."

Gods. That was below the age of legal consent. Someone ought to flaming well remind Kurj that he was bound by the law, too, even if no one had the boldness, or perhaps the imprudence, to enforce it with him. Had her parents known why she vanished? I wondered which would have been harder for them, not knowing where she went or discovering she was a prisoner of Skolia's ninety-year-old warlord. She was free now, though, and besides, none of this was my business. She had resumed her life, after all. Maybe she even liked Kurj.

Then again, maybe not.

"Mak—do you have any more information about Deirdre?"

"Checking." Then: "Prior to her stay with Imperator Skolia, Charissa Deirdre was an honor student at a vocational college in suburb eight, where she was studying to become a caregiver for children. Earlier this year she won an award for outstanding academic performance. She was secretary of a community services club and belonged to an athletic club. A boy named Jayms Procal applied for a permit to marry her when they reached their twentieth birthdays."

It didn't sound like she had much in common with Kurj. "What happened after she went to the palace?"

"She was expelled from the college for absenteeism and refusal to respond to administration summons. The expulsion was changed to 'missing person' status after her parents contacted the school. At the Imperator's request, she was reinstated at the college after she returned home. Her grades have plummeted, and she is currently doing work below the level considered acceptable for continued attendance. However, no attempt has been made to dismiss her."

Of course not. No sane person was going to dismiss a student who had been reinstated by order of the Imperator. "What about her other activities?"

"She lost her job at the hospital, then was reinstated by Imperator Skolia. Her community services club membership is active but she let her athletic membership lapse. She has no record of participating in either club since her return home. The boy who applied for the marriage permit had his application denied."

"Did her name also appear on it?" He could have applied without her knowing, hoping to have an approved permit to offer if he were the one making the proposal. But without both their signatures, the permit was worthless.

"Both names appeared," Mak said. "The permit was initially approved. However, the approval was revoked the day after her tenure at the palace began."

"What's its status now?"

"They reapplied eleven days ago. The permit was denied."

"On what grounds?"

"That the previous permit had been denied."

No surprise there, either. If Kurj had stopped the first one, no one would risk putting through a second. I wondered if he had any idea how much he had screwed up her life. I couldn't heal her emotional wounds, but I could do one thing. "Mak, link into the Marriage Bureau and have approval sent to Deirdre and her young man, on my authority." Of course Kurj could override it. But I knew him. If he had tired of the girl, he wouldn't pursue it, particularly if she left him with fond enough feelings that he had acted on her behalf at her school and job. I was the one he would come after.

"Approval sent." Mak paused. "Even a brief analysis of this situation suggests Imperator Skolia will not appreciate your intervention in his private life."

I grimaced. I had certainly found a more effective method for letting him know I had arrived than pretending my parents were at the palace. I put my feet up on the table in front of the couch, trying to relax. It didn't work. I was wound as tight as a coil. "Read the two messages in my mail queue. Don't bother with headers."

"Message one." A click sounded, followed by a bland voice. "Attention all residents. Air lifts will be turned off on three-eight-three-point-six from one to three hundred hours for maintenance. Do not attempt to use the lifts during this time."

"Mak, delete it." The message was several months old.

"Deleted. Message two." A man's voice floated into the air. "Hello, Primary Valdoria. I wasn't sure where to send this, so I posted it to General Inquiries on Diesha. I hope it reaches you. I thought you might like to know my interview with you and Secondary Blackstone did the trick. The University at Athens gave me a grant to come to Parthonia for testing. And guess what? I'm 7.2 on your Kyle scale. Of course, I don't know what to do with it yet. But the Parthonia Institute admitted me for training. Anyway, thanks. Tiller Smith."

"Well, how do you like that?" I said.

"I have no emotional reaction to the message," Mak said.

I smiled. "I do. A pleasant one. Why didn't you forward this to me on Foreshires? How long ago was it sent?"

"It reached General Inquiries fifty-three days ago. General Inquiries routed it to Military Inquiries, which routed it to Officer Inquiries, which routed it to Unsecured Documents, which routed it to Civilian Documents, which routed it to General Inquiries, which—

"Mak, can you abbreviate it a bit?"

"The message cycled through General Inquiries three times, after which a watcher flagged it, and sent it to Investigations. From there the sender went through a security check—"

"Wait a minute," I said. "Security did a check on Tiller just because he sent me a letter?"

"Yes. Do you wish the results of the investigation?"

"All right. But keep it brief."

"Tiller Smith, age twenty-six; Citizenship, Allied Worlds of Earth, Delos resident. No record of subversive activities. He was ticketed two years ago for leaving a flycar in a no parking zone at the Arcade during a parade, and when he was four years old he had to be removed from the premises of an Arcade bar he had wandered into."

"For flaming sake." Didn't Investigations have anything better to do? "When did they finally get around to giving me the message?"

"After Investigations approved it, they routed it to Central Military, which sent it here. It arrived four days ago, at which time I submitted it to Offworld Clearance for transferal to Foreshires. I'm still waiting for the release. Shall I cancel the request?"

"Please do." I rubbed my chin. "Can you access the data banks of the Parthonia Institute?"

"Yes. What do you wish me to find?"

"Who is sponsoring Tiller."

"Connecting to offworld-transfer node."

I had received my Kyle training from private tutors when I was a child, so I wasn't familiar with Institute procedures. But I was pretty sure Tiller needed patrons to attend the school. As an Allied citizen, particularly one with little or no standing even among his own people, let alone among mine, he wouldn't find many sponsors. Without them, he wouldn't last long on Parthonia. The Kyle-Mesh was power—political, military, academic, social, and economic—which meant anything concerned with it involved high stakes and a set of unwritten rules. Tiller was way out of his league.

"Information received," Mak said. "Tiller Smith has one patron, a woman named Marya Pulivok, the tester who determined his rating."

One patron? And one with no political clout. They would eat him alive and spit him all the way back to Delos. "Add me to Tiller's list of sponsors."

"Message sent." After a pause, Mak added, "And acknowledged."

"Good." With an Imperial Heir as a patron, Tiller would have them fighting for the honor of taking him as a favored student.

I went over to a bookcase against the wall. The book Tiller had given me was where I had left it, stuck between the statuette of a jade dragon and a ponderous text on mystimatical theories of alternate dimensions. I pulled out Verses on a Windowpane and opened it to the page Tiller had been reading that day in his office, the poem he had marked with the Arcade ticket:

A frame of stone.
Silvered glass
frosted with icy tears.

My fist closes
on the mirror;
flesh traps ice.
Brittle snaps
of breaking tears.
I see you now
standing behind me;
always watching,
always waiting,
never satisfied.

I sheath my heart,
its bare softness
guarded by ice.

I wondered why he had marked the poem. Was I doing that, guarding my heart with icy fortifications that grew colder and thicker, until someday I became Kurj? I closed the book with a snap. No. I wasn't Kurj. I wouldn't become him.

Would I?

I didn't have the energy to wrestle that nightmare. Although it was only midday on Diesha, I was exhausted. The flight had thrown off my internal clock.

I left the living room and went to what I called my memory hall. As I walked down the corridor, my footsteps activated its subtle screens and holos appeared. They showed the countryside around my father's house: blue-capped mountains against the sky like the backbone of a giant; plains of silver-green grass under the great dome of the sky; trees with glasswood trunks that released tinted spheres into the air. Home.

Then I was at the end of the hall and the holos were gone, vanished after I passed. I touched a panel and the door opened onto my bedroom.

Within moments, I was asleep.

* * *

"I'm sorry," the nurse said. "Secondary Blackstone isn't here."

She "sat" on the dais in my holobooth with its curving screens. I sat on a much smaller dais where lasers played over my body, producing interference patterns that my system sent to hers so her booth could produce as detailed an image of me as mine did of her. I had no desire to look at her holo, detailed or otherwise. She was too damned pretty. What was Rex doing with such a beautiful nurse?

"Do you know when he'll be back?" I asked.

"Sorry, I don't." She smiled. "He went to the park. Shall I tell him you called?"

What if he didn't want to see me? Maybe he was right there, but had asked her not to tell me. Oh, hell. This was getting me nowhere. "Yes. Tell him Soz called and that I'm here on Diesha."

"All right. I'll do. Bye." Her image faded from the booth.

Bye? Bye? What was it with these young people, saying such words? What was wrong with proper Skolian phrases, like "My pleasure at our discourse, ma'am"? Bye was an Earth word. Young people had no appreciation for their culture. Rex didn't need a nurse like that.

My console beeped at me. I touched a blue light in one corner, and a familiar voice came out of the speaker. "My greetings, Soz."

My pulse jumped. "Rex?"

"Blossom paged me about your call."

"Blossom?"

"My nurse."

It figured she had a name like Blossom. "Are you there with her?"

"No. I'm in the park."

The park. Which one? Diesha didn't have many. Water was too valuable to spend on nonessential plants, so each suburb was allowed only one park. But Diesha had nineteen suburbs, which meant he could be nineteen places. Maybe he didn't want me to know.

"Soz?" Rex asked. "Are you still there?"

I flushed. "Yes."

"When did you get in?"

"Yesterday. I came to—" To what? My cover was that I had come to see him. "I was wondering—I mean, I know I've been gone a long time . . ."

His voice relaxed a bit. "It does seem like more than five months."

"I was wondering how you were doing."

"Better."

"I'm glad." What would he say if I asked to visit him?

"Soz . . .?"

"Yes?"

"Maybe you might—I'm in park Fifteen. If you'd like to come down." Quickly he added, "If you're too busy, I understand."

I closed my eyes, so relieved I couldn't answer for a moment. Then I said, "Yes. I'd like to."

* * *

Park fifteen was hot and glaring. Broad avenues of casecrete marked off lawns the color of autumn leaves. As I rode a speedwalk through the park, people in uniforms strode by me, their eyes protected with mirrored visors.

Rex was exactly where he had described, sitting in the shade of a prickly tree. I walked toward him across the lawn, my boots crunching the grass. He looked so relaxed and healthy. The only indication of anything different was a silvery mesh that molded around his body from the waist down like trousers designed from a metallic net.

When he saw me, he raised his hand. As I waved back, he put his hand against the tree. When he jerked it back, I felt the puncture from its needle as if it jabbed my own palm. He tried again, this time leaning his weight into the tree without mishap.

Then he stood.

I stopped and gaped. Then I set off again, striding the last few meters that separated us.

"Heya, Soz," he said.

"You're standing up!"

His face relaxed into a smile. "Seems so."

"How?" No, that sounded stupid. "I mean—I thought—"

He turned and indicated the base of his spine. Looking closer, I saw a psiphon attached to the mesh, with its prong plugged into his spine.

"It goes in above the broken sections," he said. "Links to optical threads that run to my brain."

That didn't sound safe. "The doctors said it could hurt you if they tried any more manipulations with your biomech web."

"The operation had some risk, but the procedure was simple enough that they thought it would be all right. They just repaired some threads in my body and grew another socket higher in my spine." He tapped a tiny disk woven into the web. "When this chip intercepts a signal from my brain, it shunts it to the mesh." He took a stiff-legged step away from the tree and held out his hands. "The mesh moves and takes me with it."

I grinned at him. "You're walking!"

He laughed, took another jerky step—and lurched to the side. I grabbed for his arm, but he pushed me off and fell to one knee, his face knotting with—what? Anger? Frustration? Slowly, he stood up. For a moment, when he said nothing, I thought I had offended him somehow. Then he smiled ruefully. "I'm still learning to make it work."

"You'll have it obeying you in no time," I said.

"I hope so."

So we stood, looking at each other. I said, "How's Diesha?" in the same instant Rex said, "How was Foreshires?"

We laughed, a brief explosion that quickly died away. I said, "It was good," while he said, "Just fine."

This time my laugh felt more natural. "My mother came to see me."

He grinned. "I'll bet that shook up everyone."

I smiled, remembering Jarith's reaction—and immediately blocked the memory. But it was too late. Jarith's image had jumped into my mind.

Rex spoke quietly. "It's all right, Soz."

"We said goodbye. He stayed on Foreshires."

"You don't have to apologize."

"Rex . . ." Rex, what? Why did I have to be so stupid with words?

"Want to go for a walk?" he asked.

I almost said, Can you? But I caught myself before it came out. "Yes."

He took a step. Pause. Another step. I walked next to him, peering at the mesh. It contracted around his right leg, carrying that limb forward, then moved his left leg forward. "That looks more comfortable than mechanical legs."

"Not as strong, though. I thought about getting the hardware."

I tried to imagine him with his legs sheathed in exterior mechanicals. "What made you decide against it?"

"I'm not sure." He took another step. "My body is already so full of biomech. The idea of putting more on the outside didn't feel right."

"A biosynthetic marvel."

He glanced at me. "What?"

"Someone called me that once. I wished they hadn't."

"I don't blame you." He indicated a bench a few meters away. "Want to sit?"

"Sure."

When we reached the bench, Rex sank onto it and exhaled. "I never knew walking could take so much energy."

I smiled. "Well, you've got to do something with all that energy."

As soon as I said it, I wanted to fold up and blow away. It was a joke we had shared a hundred times before, a reference to his many girlfriends. It came out before I thought about it. Damn, I was an idiot. It was like hitting him with a sign announcing, Hey, look how insensitive I am!

Don't be so sure, Soz. Rex smiled. I have more energy than you think.

I blinked, embarrassed by how transparent I was to him. Are you eavesdropping?

It's hard not to, when you shout like that.

I reddened. I wasn't shouting.

He smirked at me. You most certainly were. At the top of your mental lungs.

I glared at him. You're as ornery as ever.

So my nurse tells me.

Pah. I refused to share my mind with his nurse. "You mean the esteemed Miss Blossom?"

"Miss? What does that mean?"

"It's an old fashioned Earth word." After all, Blossom was the one who liked Earth words. "It refers to a women's marital status." I squinted at him. "Or lack thereof."

His voice gentled. "If you want to know, just ask."

"I don't mean to pry. It's none of my business."

"Would it make a difference to our friendship?"

Yes, damn it. No, that wasn't fair. Why shouldn't he have a lover? Because. Why did he want her and not me?

Rex watched my face. "Soz—she's what I can deal with right now."

Like Jarith. After a moment I said, "I understand." Then I snorted. "But can't she do something about that awful name?"

"I like it."

"You would."

He laughed good-naturedly. "Still the same Soz."

Despite myself, I smiled. "I guess so." But I wasn't. Foreshires had changed everything.

We spent the afternoon walking, sitting, talking. Neither of us mentioned Jarith, Blossom, or Delos. Someday we would sort it out. Now it was enough just to have his companionship again.

It was late when I reached home. The living room was dark, but as soon as the door opened I knew someone was inside. My hand dropped to the belt of my jumpsuit, where I had hidden a dart thrower. "Lumos up," I said.

The room brightened, revealing my visitor: Kurj. He stood in an inner doorway leaning against the frame, his arms folded, his shielded eyes directed toward me.

I closed the door. "My greetings."

"Why did you send approval for Charissa's marriage license?"

Well, that was subtle. "Because otherwise no one would have ever let that girl get married."

"She could have come to me. I would have taken care of it."

"Given your—former relationship with her, she probably didn't feel she could ask."

He studied my face. "What advantage did you see in helping her?"

Advantage? "I didn't."

He considered me. "Who is Tiller Smith?"

"He worked in the Delos police station. He took our report about Jaibriol Qox."

"And?"

I didn't see what he was looking for. "That's all."

Kurj raised his eyebrows. "Then why did your spinal node flag on a book he gave you when your squad was leaving for Tams?"

What was he doing, keeping notes on everything I did? "It was a book of poems. It made me think about how combat affects me."

He stood silently, like machine crunching data, analyzing, filing. Then he said, "That doesn't explain why you became his patron at the Institute."

"If I hadn't, they would have eaten him alive."

"I can see the advantage to him. But not to you."

"I don't see your point." I did, in fact, see it perfectly well. But it angered me enough that I had no intention of acknowledging it. So what if no advantage came to me in helping Tiller or Charissa?

Kurj went to the bookshelf and pulled out Verses on a Windowpane. It fell open to the page marked by the Arcade ticket. As he stood reading, I could almost hear him filing the words in his brain: Always watching, always waiting, never satisfied.

He smiled dryly. "Poetry like this would inspire me to send him far away."

A joke? No, it couldn't be. But why not? Kurj could have a sense of humor buried in there. Just in case, I smiled. "Well, it's different."

"That's not a reason to become his patron." He slid the book on the shelf. "Did he please you?"

"If you're asking did I bed him, the answer is no."

"Did you want to?"

"No."

Kurj frowned. "I assume he has no holds over you?"

"Of course he doesn't."

"Does Charissa?"

"I've never met the girl, aside from that day at the hospital." Shaking my head, I said, "You're looking for something that isn't there. I helped them because I felt like it. No other reason."

Kurj spoke quietly. "Then you're a fool."

"I don't see it that way."

"Why?

This was stranger and stranger. I felt more like I was being interviewed for a job than called to task for my actions. "It's better to have your citizenry as satisfied as possible with their lives. Happy people are more productive."

"It isn't your job to see to the happiness of Imperial citizens."

"These were situations where I could make a difference."

"Tiller Smith isn't even Skolian," Kurj said. "Not only does training him have no advantage to us, it could be a disadvantage. He will take his knowledge back to the Allieds."

"So we should give him reason to stay here. Then we get use of his talent instead of the Allieds." Who wouldn't know what to do with it anyway.

Kurj considered me. "Very well."

I waited, but he said no more. That was it. No warnings to leave off with his personal life, no reprimands, nothing. Instead, he settled into an armchair. Then he motioned me toward the couch.

I sat down, puzzled. Kurj sat there, silent and appraising, his inner lids covering his eyes like gold shields. I shifted in my seat. What was going on?

I want to take no risks, he thought.

I almost jumped up again. His thought was unusually clear and strong even for him, which suggested he had prepared in depth for this silent discussion. Why?

Security, Kurj thought.

You already have the best security in the Imperialate.

True. But this is an unusual situation. His thoughts had an odd flavor, a taste of triumph. We have a guest.

Who? I already knew he was the only one staying at the palace.

His smile had a grim edge to it. Then he showed me an image of our "guest."

Jaibriol Qox.

My first reaction was a reflex I had coded into my node, a program set to run whenever I heard Jaibriol's name. It initiated a procedure that shielded my mind as inconspicuously as possible, hiding my reaction. Behind that mask, though, my thoughts rocketed: how had they caught Jaibriol, where was he, what did they know? Even with my node working furiously, I couldn't conceal the intensity of my response. So I let some of it show, just enough shock that Kurj would find appropriate.

The Highton Heir is here? I thought.

Yes. He is ours now.

But how?

He was in a ship, alone, without even a Solo and Escort. Kurj leaned forward. One of our Kyle sentries registered the ship during inversion, going at millions of times light speed. The Sixth Squadron threw him into stasis and dragged him out.

I stared at him. What was Jaibriol Qox doing alone, without a single guard?

We don't know. He's told us nothing. The shields over Kurj's eyes glinted. Yet.

I didn't want to imagine what they were doing to Jaibriol. I knew what his interrogators would soon discover, if they hadn't already; mental blocks even stronger than a Jagernaut's guarded his mind. On Delos, for me, he had relaxed those defenses. But if his were anything like mine, then under duress, his conditioning would stop him from lowering those barriers even if he wanted to.

I had tried to forget why his blocks so easily dissolved for me, tried to forget the longing in his voice, the feel of his body. But one thought was all it took. I remembered and my pulse raced. Even though he was the Highton Heir. I wanted him. Like knew like.

Kurj was watching me. What's wrong?

Careful. Dangerous ground. I was thinking about my last meeting with a Highton.

Tarque.

I didn't answer and he didn't probe. It was the way we always treated the subject. I phrased my next question carefully. Why so much secrecy? Capturing the Highton Heir is a triumph. Making it public will cripple Trader morale and send ours flying.

I don't trust this good fortune, Kurj thought. It may be a trap. Until we know more I intend to take no risks.

Purpose indeed. What had Jaibriol been doing, hurtling through space with no protection? No one without access to the Kyle-Mesh could have found him. Even with it, we were lucky to have caught him. At that speed, he could have traveled for years and only an instant would have gone by for the rest of us. Fast enough, and he could have lived his entire life and died before anyone knew he disappeared.

Then it hit me. He had intended exactly that. Suicide. Except it hadn't worked. The Kyle-Mesh had caught him like a shimmerfly in a web.

I let a question reach the surface of my mind: What have you found out from Qox?

Nothing. Kurj's frustration simmered. He responds as if he has a biomech web in his body programmed to help him resist interrogation. But we've found no trace of one. His only implant is the cyberlock in his brain.

They were so close to the truth. What will you do?

Find an interrogator who can disrupt his conditioning.

I knew what would happen. Jaibriol's mental shields could block the neural processes in his brain that let him interact with people. In extreme cases—like interrogation—he wouldn't be able to communicate by any means, even speech. He couldn't answer their questions. Breaking that conditioning was no different than breaching any other defense; it required a strong enough battering ram, in this case a powerful telepath. Kurj could do it, but his blunt power would smash Jaibriol's mind. My brother Althor had more subtlety, but probably not enough. My aunt had the finesse but not the strength. Although my father had both, he had none of the military knowledge needed to do the interrogation. No one did except Kurj and Althor.

And me.

I forced a calm into my mind that didn't touch what I felt. Why did you call me here?

He watched me with his shielded gaze. I've assigned you to Qox's case.

You have more experienced interrogators.

None of them can break him. None. Think about what that means.

He has a strong mind.

Too strong.

I said nothing, afraid to move for fear it would give me away.

He is a psion, Kurj thought.

He can't be.

Nevertheless. He is. A strong one.

I don't see how that's possible.

Nor I. Kurj shook his head. I've worked on him, Soz. I can't break his defenses.

You can break any mind.

It would take so much force, it would reduce him to a vegetable.

I didn't know which disturbed me more, knowing Kurj was on the verge of the truth or feeling his grim satisfaction when he contemplated the screams of the man he thought responsible for the massacre at Tams. It was the first time in my life I had felt the brunt of Kurj's hatred, and I hoped like hell it was never directed at me.

If you can't break him, I thought, I'm not sure what you think I can do.

You have more finesse. Get into his mind. Tell me what's there. Kurj stood up. Meet me at the palace in the morning, oh-six hundred. Make it look like a personal visit.

I wanted to refuse. But I could only stand up and say, Yes, sir.

After Kurj left, I dropped into my chair and put my head in my hands. Then I lifted it, wondering if my apartment was monitored. I didn't dare show signs of the turmoil I felt.

I understood why Kurj thought Jaibriol's capture was a trick; it was the only way Ur Qox could gain direct access to Skolia's Imperator. My brother wouldn't take the same personal interest if we caught anyone less than the Highton Heir. It was a horrible thought, that Qox would send his own son to be tortured in the hope that Jaibriol could assassinate Kurj. Yet if anyone appeared capable of that, it was the Trader Emperor. But I was sure Qox hadn't done it. He valued Jaibriol too much, and not only because of his Rhon genes. In his own way, Qox loved his son. The emperor would never send him on an assassination mission. The only person Jaibriol had meant to kill was himself.

I got up and walked to the wall. Although it looked opaque, it was a double-paned window. When I touched a small panel on it, the window's polarization changed to let me see through the glass. Flyers glided among the towers, their sleek lines the only curves in a city of corners and edges. Beyond the suburbs, the barren red desert rolled out to the horizon.

Where had Kurj put Jaibriol? In a vault under the city? Some remote base elsewhere on the planet? That prison would be guarded by layers of security. What to do? Even if I did find him, I couldn't send him back to Ur Qox and Kryx Quaelen.

I could do what Kurj wanted, but make it easy on Jaibriol. I could "discover" the Highton Heir was insane, that his father had repudiated him and his only choice was suicide. If my brother believed Jaibriol knew nothing useful, that he wasn't even capable of understanding why he was being tortured, Kurj would let him die. The advantage of publicly executing the Highton Heir would outweigh any satisfaction he might gain from keeping him alive to punish him.

Except I didn't want Jaibriol to die. I wanted him to live. With me.

I pressed my hands against the glass. Tager had forced me to face the truth. I may have never asked for the responsibilities of my heritage, but I wanted the title of Imperator so much I could taste it. Turning my back on that power—it was true what Rex had once said about me. I was no saint. I couldn't walk away from it.

Yet Jaibriol had done almost exactly that with his title. Maybe he was a better person that I. Or wiser. Or weaker. I didn't know. For some reason Tager believed I was more than what I saw, more than a bitter soldier with her heart sheathed in so much ice she had nothing left to give. He treated me as if I had a value beyond my heritage. He even made me believe that maybe, just maybe, he was right. Yet I also heard my mother's voice, soft and hurting, as she spoke about Kurj: He changed. Bit by bit, year by year, decade by decade. Until finally I lost him. How long until she lost me as well?

No. I didn't have to end up that way. I could have Tager brought to Diesha—no, that was Kurj's style. I would ask Tager. If he didn't want to leave Foreshires, I would find a heartbender here. But I hoped Tager would come. I trusted him, at least as much as I could trust anyone.

And there was Rex. With enough time, perhaps we could pick up those ends that had broken between us. With Rex by my side and Tager to keep me sane, maybe it would be all right. What my parents had done, creating a Rhon community—that was a fluke, a dream. Jaibriol and I could never give it to each other.

Even so. I could still free him. The problem of where he would go remained, though. He couldn't ask the Allieds for sanctuary. No one would have the Highton Heir. No one would believe he was as much a victim of the Aristos as the rest of us.

Unless . . .I vouched for him. If the Delos authorities didn't keel over from the shock, it just might work. But first I had to free Jaibriol without implicating myself.

I pushed up my sleeves. I had a lot of work to do.

XIV
Mind Of The Web

The Hub stood in the middle of a plaza. It was deceptively plain, just a two-story building with white casecrete walls. Muted lamps lit the area even this late at night. A featureless door offered entry. When I pressed my fingers into its lock, a scanner read my prints and the door slid open, revealing a cubicle that resembled an airlock. Except instead of air, this lock kept in secrets.

After I stepped inside, the outer door closed. The walls glowed with just enough light to let me see a psiphon resting in a cradle by the inner door. I plugged it into my wrist and waited while its security system scanned my brain.

The inner door slid open.

A corridor with glass walls stretched before me, lined with offices on both sides, each with one person inside. Telops. They wore full exoskeletons plugged in at the wrists, spine, and neck, with visors over their eyes or even helmets. Most sat still, though a man on my right was slowly rocking his head back and forth. They didn't need to move. Just think. In one office, a woman without a visor was leaning back in her chair, watching holos rotate above her console with views of the Hub.

Security menu, I thought. Personnel files, Security telops, Hub, current.

The face of a woman with grey hair and lean features formed in my mind. Stats appeared under her: name, age, security clearances, other pertinent data from her ISC files.

Simultaneous displays, I thought.

Her image shrunk to an eighth of my mindscape. Seven more faces appeared, all the telops who monitored security here. As I walked down the hall, my node matched the faces to the men and women in the offices, giving me stats on each. Although I had learned to deal with the "double exposure" created when my mindscape produced images at the same time I was looking at something, it was still disorienting to see the telops in my mind and these offices at the same time.

The corridor ended in another security airlock. This time when I plugged in its psiphon, a metallic thought entered my mind.

Name?

Sauscony Valdoria, Primary.

Purpose?

I kept my mind as smooth as the surface of a lake on a windless day. To recode T12.

The inner door opened.

I walked into a circular lobby with white walls and a blue carpet. Blue chairs stood against the walls. In the center of the room, a white metal staircase spiraled up to the ceiling. The carpet muffled my footsteps as I crossed to the stairs. As I climbed, around and around, even the clink of my boots on the metal sounded subdued. At the top, I faced a blank wall with nothing but a psiphon cradle breaking the flat expanse. I plugged its psiphon into my wrist socket.

A new voice entered my mind, cool and impersonal. I have no record of your assignment to work on T12.

Override and open. I stood relaxed, using programmed routines to control my muscles so they wouldn't tense. The lobby below, the white walls, the stairs—I knew what hid within their innocuous surfaces. Monitors were checking everything from my breathing rate to my brain waves. Any questionable reaction would sound the alarm. Hell, it might sound anyway. This door opened only to users on an access list provided by Kurj. Sometimes I was on the list, sometimes not. My node calculated a 76 percent probability he had me on it now, in case I needed to come here while I prepared for Jaibriol's interrogation. But I couldn't be sure.

I waited.

And waited.

Sweat started to form on my brow, which wasn't good. But then the wall opened, revealing a tunnel about a meter long. I ducked my head to enter, then straightened and walked through the tunnel. It exited into another white room with blue carpet. Behind me, the wall closed into a featureless surface.

This room had no furniture. Nothing but mesh nodes. Each stood in its designated place, some isolated, some connected by hardware. The acoustics muted the hum of their operation the same way the lobby downstairs had muted my footsteps.

The network dedicated to Imperial Space Command was spread across the Imperialate, with built-in redundancy and multiple back-ups, increasing its resistance to compromise. This location had ten nodes—including EM16, a cylinder of black glassplex near the center of the room. It stood two meters high, had a diameter of one meter, and the thickness of a finger. Lights glowed within it, and an opening in one side offered entry into its interior. I stepped through the entrance into a cylindrical cavity with a domed roof and a bench running around its perimeter.

Moving quickly, I stripped off my boots, jumpsuit, and underwear, leaving my skin bare to the cool air. Then I stood in the center of the cylinder on a weight-activated circle. A tube rose around me, higher and higher, until it locked into the dome above my head. Its silvery walls were just translucent enough to let me see my clothes as a shadowed lump on the bench.

A metal framework rose out of the floor, whirring as it closed bands around my ankles and snapped psiphons into the sockets. When the framework reached my torso, a belt locked around my waist, its psiphon snicking into the socket at the base of my spine. Bracelets closed my wrists, inserting psiphons. The framework rose higher and a collar fastened around my neck, plugging a psiphon into the base of my brain stem. I fought down my fear of being trapped inside a coffin sized tube. I had to hide it. Anyone with a valid reason for linking into EM16 had no cause to feel threatened by a cage designed to imprison intruders. If I gave it cause for suspicion, it would refuse to release me until the authorities came.

The room faded from my awareness. I seeped darkly into EM16, sliding along the potential hills and valleys of psiberspace like a ghost drifting over virtual countryside.

SYSTEM PRIVILEGES, EM16 thought.

My relief flared, but I kept my face impassive. My gamble had paid off. Only two ways existed to gain system privileges on the Kyle-Mesh. One was to be in the Triad. The other was to use one of the Hubs. I had just entered the Mesh with the highest clearance available to a non-Triad telop.

The network appeared in my mindscape as a grid of translucent fibers flashing with iridescent sparks. Psiware stretched across grid squares like filmy lace that sparkled each time a user accessed it. Those sparkles were too faint for most users to detect, including Kurj, but I saw them clearly.

I didn't feel the immense flux of power Kurj generated in the mesh. He had been here earlier; his operations left a potent signature. He was probably sleeping now, alone with his security systems and bodyguards. Although my EI had claimed Kurj was staying at the palace, that had to be a cover; until Kurj finished with Jaibriol, he would remain in his city tower, close to his center of operations.

The danger here wasn't Kurj. A subtler mind permeated the web, one always present, even now when its owner wasn't in the system—my aunt, the ranking member of the Triad. Her operations had an unparalleled delicacy; had I not known to look, I would have missed her signature. Kurj rumbled like a giant trawler through Kyle space, and my father was the ocean that supported it, but it was my aunt who had woven that mesh into the far-reaching web of power it had become.

She had security monitors everywhere. As soon as EM16 acknowledged me, one of my aunt's watchers had recorded that information and stored it in a security cache. I saw it happen; the words Systems Privileges sparkled in a grid square, caught like a moth in the lace, and then vanished.

I wrapped a security cloak around my mind, creating a silence that was the mental equivalent of standing motionless. Then I concentrated on the square that had registered my intrusion. It swelled in size while the grid streamed past me in a tunnel of filaments. When it reached me, I saw the data about my entry lodged in a cell within the grid, under a film of lace, trapped in that location of memory. I slid into the cell, taking care to disturb none of the filmy psiware that floated lazily around me like sealace under water. Then I wiped the memory clean. My passage back out was so smooth, not one spark revealed my progress.

I next erased all record of my entrance into the Hub. Then I brought up my file of the telops downstairs and used it to find them in the Mesh. By manipulating the grid, I created false memories so they would forget my visit. It was harder to erase memory in telops than in conventional nodes, but I set it up so that unless they specifically searched for tampering, they probably wouldn't detect it. Had my aunt rigged EM16 to look for me, I doubt I could have hidden, but she had no reason to suspect I would do anything as illogical as skulking around here with the deliberate intent to violate security.

Sauscony?

I froze. That was my father. The mesh warmed, and I had an odd sense the strands smiled. Nothing on the grid moved, but the sense persisted.

My father was the last person I had expected. He and my mother were at home on Lyshriol, visiting the multitude of grandchildren they kept reminding me I had yet to contribute to. It had never occurred to me that he would link up from there. He had to use the console room in our house, which he intensely disliked. Although Kyle space fascinated him, he was wary of machines, even those that allowed him to access to the Mesh. He used them when necessary, but that certainly didn't include visits to his grandchildren. However, he was definitely here. I hadn't noticed before because he filled Kyle space, surrounding every strand and film and sparkle. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought he was on Diesha, linked in through one of the central nodes used by the Triad.

I hid from him, pulling on security routines like a black cloak. As he searched for me, the grid rippled with his efforts like a net in the ocean rocking with the swells. Gradually his certainty that he had detected me faded to doubt, then to embarrassment that he could have made such a mistake. Finally his attention turned elsewhere.

I moved on, careful to avoid him while I sought out the data I had come to find. But it didn't appear. I found no path, no pipeline, no hint leading to information about our capture of Jaibriol.

I did, however, discover an inconsistency. It was one psicon among hundreds grouped in a section of the grid dedicated to our trade agreements with the Allieds. Each psicon represented a world. Set innocuously in with them was the colorful image of an island on Earth, a place called Delos.

At first glance, it looked reasonable. We used that symbol for the planet Delos—except we had no trade agreement with them. I was one the few people who knew Kurj had dissolved the treaty because his disliked their policy of giving asylum to Imperialate citizens. He kept his actions a secret to avoid igniting a controversy should people find out he had acted to block his own citizens from seeking sanctuary.

I concentrated on the Delos psicon, and the island grew until every detail showed, from grey and brown rocks jutting along its shore to the turquoise waters of the Aegean sea lapping its beaches.

Open, I thought.

The island split down the middle and opened like a pair of doors. The smell of salt and sealace tickled my nose, accompanied by the murmur of breakers. A menu of psicons appeared, indicating what functions I could use while I worked with the Delos records. One showed a small scroll tied with red ribbon.

List files, I thought. Written records only. Although it was easier to view the files using an interactive simulation, it required more system resources, which increased the chance it would draw attention to my actions. Relying only on written records was like using swords for combat when battle cruisers were available—but swords were far less conspicuous than battle cruisers.

The ribbon whisked off the scroll, and the parchment unrolled in a crackle of old paper, filling my view with a list of files. It was written in my aunt's script, with well formed letters and just enough flourish to please the eye. Then the font changed into the amber text I preferred.

Damn. EM16 might as well have turned on a speaker blaring my presence to the next person who opened the file. Undo font change, I thought.

The list reformed with my aunt's font.

Psicon, I thought.

The display winked out, leaving me in the grid. The island psicon waited in the lower corner of my mindscape, a green dot glowing on it to show it was active. I went deeper into the mesh, and strands of light streamed past, sparkling, glimmering, changing hue and color and texture. Even the smells varied: metallic, sharp, sweet, acrid. Finally I reached the inner layer I sought. Master psicons waited here, each dedicated to a function of the programs that ran the grid environment. I picked out the one that showed a doctor holding a surgical laser . . .and my mind went black: no images, words, sounds, smells, tastes, textures.

SPECIFY MEMORY LOCATION, EM16 thought.

Delos psicon, most recent font change, I answered.

A string of numbers and letters appeared, white on black. SPECIFY CHANGE.

Replace the third A with an 0.

The A changed into 0, erasing all record of the fact that EM16 had altered the font when I opened the Delos file.

CHANGES COMPLETE, EM16 thought.

Delete record. I followed my command with the password EM16 required to execute it.

The mesh reappeared. In the process of returning me to it, EM16 deleted all record that I had doctored its memory. My aunt had installed the delete record option so she could interact with EM16 and leave no trace. I knew about it because she had asked me to reprogram Hub security last year—and she didn't trust anyone else enough to give them that much access to the system.

I returned back up to the trade files. As I reopened the Delos psicon, waves broke against an invisible shore, and a cool wind blew against my cheeks. I remained "silent," simply reading the list of file names. They looked exactly like what they claimed to be, a record of trade negotiations with Delos. I opened A.Secretary-S and found a letter from the Allied Trade Secretary trying to convince our Trade Secretary to re-establish relations. I closed the file and scrolled through the list. What to look for? Opening every file would take too long. Kurj rarely spent more than a few hours sleeping, and I had to be out of EM16 by the time he awoke.

A file caught my attention. Artemis. The name came from Allied mythology. Artemis was a goddess born on the island Delos with her brother Apollo. It was a reasonable name to find here; these were, after all, files about the planet Delos. But only I knew that Artemis had special meaning to Kurj. Earth's mythology fascinated him, particularly the Greek tales: the Iliad and Odyssey. Hercules, Medea, Agamemnon. Oedipus. During one of his rare visits to Lyshriol, when I was a child, he had seen me riding in the woods, a fourteen-year-old girl practicing with a bow and arrow. He told me later he never forgot that sight, the wild, bare-legged girl shooting at trees. He called me Artemis, after the goddess of the hunt.

Open Artemis, I thought.

The scroll vanished, replaced by a holoscript of my arrest on Delos. Pah. This was the last thing I wanted. Close, I thought.

CLOSED, EM16 answered.

I continued going over the files. Nothing looked unusual. Finally I thought, Close Delos.

CLOS—

No! Wait. Why put a file about my arrest here? Yes, sure, if a highly placed Imperial officer alienated the Delos government, it could damage our already shaky relationship with them. But the behavior—or misbehavior—of military officers was Kurj's concern, and he was unremittingly literal with his organization. He would put the file on my arrest in the same place where he put all his other files about arrests of highly placed officers who could damage negotiations with the Allieds.

My aunt must have made this copy. I could see why she might want a notation of the incident here. But the complete record? Whatever for?

Open Artemis, I thought.

The holoscript activated, recreating the police station on Delos so vividly that I felt as if I were there. Again. I went through the entire mortifying file. It contained every last detail, even the fact that Blackstar, the computer on my ship, had intercepted a satellite transmission about my arrest that the Delos police sent to ISC. The file was exactly what it claimed; a report of my unplanned visit with the Allied police.

Something kept tugging my mind. A small point . . .Taas? Yes, I remembered. When Blackstar dumped that satellite transmission into my mindscape, it had spilled into the node on Taas's ship. He tried to stop the spillover, but—what? He used the wrong commands. That was it. He used every one he could think of and none worked. My spinal node still had the list he had tried: stop, cancel, break, quit, exit, bye, system, chop, stomp, flush, dump, and curse. I told him—what? To use erase. Yes, erase had done the trick.

Huh. This file should include the spillover. But it wasn't here. I went over the record detail by detail, but found no mention of it. I had come looking for data and instead discovered its lack. It couldn't have disappeared by accident; all the fighters in my squad had recorded it, and I found it hard to believe the same omission would occur in all four reports. I couldn't imagine Kurj deleting it. In his view of the universe, such an omission would be sloppiness, which he avoided to the point of obsession.

It had to be my aunt. Why would she remove such trivial data? She was too smart to do it by accident. She was too damned smart, period. Trying to follow her mental processes often left me feeling as if my brain worked with the speed of a slug.

I closed the Artemis file and searched the other Delos records, looking for anything related to Taas. Nothing even marginally promising came up. I was running out of time, and I knew nothing more than when I had started. Taas. Artemis. Delos. Satellite. Spillover. What?

The psicon. After Taas used the erase command, he sent me an image of his erase psicon, a scantily dressed woman with a big bosom whose scraps of clothing disappeared as she painted them. She disappeared whenever she appeared. Of course! What better way to hide data than to make it self-vanishing, so that the act of calling it up erased it. It was exactly the kind of solution that would appeal to my aunt.

Now I knew where she had hidden Jaibriol's files. It wasn't in EM16. She had left Kurj a pointer here as a precaution, in case he came looking for the files. It was an effective method; only someone who knew those facts were missing would realize the pointer existed. The information, however, existed in another place: it was on the key to the cyberlock in her brain.

Anyone could have a cyberlock implanted. They didn't need to be a psion. That was why we called it cyber instead of psiber. Every member of my family who had a biomech web also had a cyberlock. The Assembly insisted on it. That was why I had recognized the rainbows around Jaibriol's mansion on Delos, the almost invisible veil of colors that warned of an active cyberlock.

None of us liked them. The field disrupted brain function and could cause damage if used too often. To operate mine, I needed my psiberchip, a card with neural tracings created from my brain cells. For most people, such a chip was useless. Only psions could activate them. If I linked to the card through psiberspace, it became a functioning part of my brain. If another psion tried to link to it, the chip would know it wasn't me the same way I would know if an intruder began thinking in my mind.

We kept the keys to our cyberlocks on psiberchips because implanting the keys in our brains was too risky. A head injury could damage it. Separating the key and the lock made it easier to steal the key, but using psiberchips solved that problem. A chip that recognized its owner's brain could be set to erase if a foreign mind accessed it. What better place for my aunt to hide the data about Jaibriol than on her psiberchips? If someone tried to access the data, the chip would erase. It was an ingenious warning system, too, because if her chips erased it would trigger an alarm in her spinal node.

Unfortunately, it also meant I couldn't access the data. But then, neither could Kurj. Why leave him a pointer to a place he couldn't go?

Wait. Maybe the information wasn't on her chips. Maybe she put it on his. But how? They were also protected. They would erase if she fiddled with them.

The Kyle-Mesh. Of course. Boosted by the Triad psilink, she and Kurj could meld their minds even more closely than Jaibriol and I had done on Delos. With their minds blended into one, she could access his chips. I doubted he could do the reverse; it required too much delicacy. Only my aunt had the necessary knowledge, finesse, power, and mesh privileges. Knowing her, she could probably manage it without Kurj even noticing. However, that still did me no good. I couldn't join the Triad link. The flux of power it generated increased exponentially with each Rhon telepath. Two minds posed no danger. Three worked only if the minds weren't too much alike. A fourth would overload the Mesh in one giant, star-spanning short circuit.

So now what?

A thought came to me. Kurj had access to my psiberchips. He claimed it was for my protection, but I knew better. He wanted control over my cyberlock, another of his precautions to minimize the chance one of his heirs would turn on him. My chips included neural tracings cultured from his brain to ensure my keys wouldn't erase if he accessed them. Could I link to my chip, merge with that piece of his brain, and fool his chips into thinking I was him? He wouldn't notice my meddling unless he happened to access the chip at the same time. And right now he was asleep.

I shuddered. The risk of being detected wasn't what disturbed me most about the idea. What if I couldn't dissociate from his mind when I finished my work? The prospect of being imprisoned in Kurj's rigidly controlled paradigm of existence scared the hell out of me.

I closed the Delos files and deleted all record of my visit. After setting the Hub monitors so they wouldn't record my departure, I withdrew from the Mesh. Then I stood in the dark, waiting for the psiphon cage to release me.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Sweat beaded on my temple. No, I couldn't show fear. That, more than anything I had done so far, would give me away.

Suddenly the psiphon restraints snapped away from my body. The tube that had surrounded me slid back into the ground, letting cool air waft across my bare skin.

I took a breath. Then I put on my clothes and left.

* * *

The psiberchip lay in my hand, a square the size of my palm. I sat at the console in my bedroom and stared at the chip. Taking it out of the safe here had been easy, but I couldn't go any further.

Alive. This card was alive. Nanomeds tended the neural tracings, keeping them ready to link with my brain. I had ten chips, two in a vault in my father's house, three on Forshires, four at Headquarters, and this one in my apartment.

The console waited. I had only to insert the card. My node calculated a 94 percent probability that I could merge with the microscopic piece of Kurj's brain on the chip. Whether or not that would let me access his chips was another story, but I wouldn't find out until I tried. If I tried. If I could force myself to become Kurj.

I stared at the card. One minute passed. Three. Five. The few precious hours I had to work with while Kurj slept were leaking away.

I took a breath. Then I slid the card into the console and logged into my personal account, the one I used for private rather than military matters. I entered the optical network anyone could use, but from there I accessed Kyle space, or psiberspace as many of us called that eerie universe. My mind expanded onto the four nodes that served the relatively small civilian arm of the Dieshan mesh. They worked together, swapping among themselves according to whichever happened to be free when a user entered a command.

I started on Alto. Its subgrid was subdued, a faint gold color. No sign showed of my father. The whole mesh changed when he withdrew, becoming less vibrant. Nor did I pick up the delicate sparkles of my aunt's presence or the immense flux of Kurj's power. Right now Alto just felt like Alto, one of four simple voices singing together with no Triad soloists to jazz up the tune.

Greetings, Soz, Alto thought.

Greetings. Connect me with my psiberchip.

Chip accessed.

I felt nothing. No reason I should have, given that it was part of my brain. Locate Imperator Skolia's neural tracings.

It was Soprano that answered. Located.

Match my brain activity with his. I had no idea if that command would work; no formalized procedures existed for doing this.

Attempting match, Soprano thought.

I waited, watching the mesh flicker. It was lovely, with an eerie beauty that never appeared the same twice. The infinite gold network hung in a shimmering atmosphere, one more liquid than gas, pale and sparkling. It undulated. The sounds of the civilian nodes were gentler than in the Hub, sweet melodies that rippled like ocean swells. Its smells were honey-corn and spice.

Soprano? I thought. Is anything happening?

Tenor answered. Your brain resists.

That was no surprise. I had shared enough thoughts with Kurj to know that our mental processes were basically foreign.

Keep trying, I thought.

I continued to wait. Although the grid exhibited a well ordered pattern of squares, it showed many defects. Those discontinuities came from poorly maintained connections and negligent users. Fluctuations appeared in its environment, concentrations of color and light in asymmetric patches. Civilians were inefficient. Our organization of the military grids was far more ordered.

What is the status of matching procedure? I asked.

Bass answered. Matching complete.

What difference exists between my brain activity and that of Imperator Skolia, as determined by his tracings on my chip?

1.6 percent, Bass answered.

I felt nothing. That I perceived no difference didn't prove its absence. However, a 1.6 percent discrepancy wasn't negligible. The possibility still existed that his chip would erase if I tried to access it, leaving irrefutable evidence I had been in violation of security procedures.

I needed to rethink the risks of tampering with Kurj's strategy for the Qox interrogation. Here on Diesha, Qox was too close to the power centers of the Kyle-Mesh. If he escaped, he could carry out exactly the function he had been bred to execute. He could gain access to the link and overload the Triad. If he managed it without killing himself, he would be perfectly positioned to take over the functions of the three people he had murdered. It would put him in control of the Mesh and ISC.

Bass, stop matching, I thought.

Stopped, Bass thought.

I withdrew from the meshes in proper format, rising through its levels. Then I considered my next move. If I told Kurj what I knew about Jaibriol, I risked execution for the treason I committed by hiding the truth for so long. But Kurj needed the information. Instead, I could interrogate Qox, break his barriers, and inform Kurj that the Highton Heir was Rhon. I would present the information as if I were learning it for the first time. That way, I protected both myself and the Imperialate.

I would have to be careful when I broke Jaibriol's barriers, though, so I didn't hurt him.

I rubbed my eyes, drained from my work. And now I was about to make Jaibriol's suicide attempt into reality.

Suicide. Suicide. Why had I forgotten that? What blazes was wrong with me, thinking Jaibriol had come here to kill us?

I got up and paced out of the room, trying to clear my head. A moment ago I had been thinking with what I believed was perfect clarity. Yet now I felt as if a stranger had been in my head. My intention was to free Jaibriol, not betray him to Kurj. How could I get the information I needed to locate Jaibriol, if the process of finding it made me betray him?

I picked up a paper and wrote: It's not your mind. If you listen, you will regret it. Get the data.

* * *

The maze of halls under the ISC Records complex went on for kilometers. Its stark lines and dim lighting had earned it the name Catacombs. My psiberchips were in a Catacombs vault secured a beta scanner, which analyzed retinal patterns, fingerprints, voice, height, weight, body chemistry, skeletal structure, and brainwaves. It opened only to me or Kurj, who also kept one of his chips there. That vault stood inside a larger vault secured with a beta scanner, inside a room secured with a beta, at the end of a hall secured by a beta. It was the best security the Imperialate had to offer. Breaking in was impossible—unless you happened to be the person it was meant to protect.

Every lock opened for me. Within the innermost vault, I found our chips in a molded box on a shelf. I sat at a console by the wall and clicked my card into the psiberchip slot. This time Bass gave me a 1.2% match to Kurj's brain. I picked up Kurj's card—

—and stopped.

I was about to commit an act that could destroy my family and the Imperialate. I was a fool. I had been operating within an emotional mindset that damaged my ability to think clearly.

I looked at the paper in my hand. It's not your mind.

Incorrect. It was imprecise to state that merging with Kurj's brain made my mind his. It altered my mental processes, giving me insights I otherwise lacked. My mind remained my own.

If you listen, you will regret it.

No. The only source of regret I would find in these actions were the actions themselves. It was time I stopped this treason.

Get the data.

No data was available to me. My aunt had protected it with her customary brilliance; even if someone came this close, they would go no further because in the process of reaching it they came to understand why it must not be reached.

It's not your mind.

My mind had been strained. Tager had made this clear in my talks with him.

Seeing Tager had been a weakness.

No!

I clenched the console so tightly my knuckles turned white. The paper crumpled in my hand, its edges sticking out of my fist. Seeing Tager had not been a weakness. My mind was sound. If I had written these words on this paper, they were sound.

I picked up Kurj's card and placed it in the slot. His chip resisted me, like a human body rejecting a transplanted organ. I tensed, waiting for that sense of deletion that would come when it wiped itself blank.

Instead I felt a curious relaxation. Then I remembered where to find Jaibriol.

* * *

I entered EM16 as before, cloaking my operations. This time I went straight to the security subgrid. When I toggled visual mode, the net blinked out of existence, replaced by the desert. Parched land surrounded me for thousands of kilometers, red and mottled with upjutting rocks that cut the landscape in angular fingers. Prickly grey stubs of dustbite poked out of the sand. Only far in the north, where the plains rose into a haze of mountains, did the view soften. The sky above me stretched in a blue stone tablet washed clean of clouds.

No one lived here. ISC had other purposes for this desert. We had honeycombed it with installations, including Block Three, a complex hidden under the desert.

Psicon, I thought.

The desert retreated like a cloth backdrop yanked away by a giant hand, shrinking as it receded, until it was no more than an icon glittering within a square of the Kyle-Mesh. I accessed the file in my node with the data I had stolen from Kurj's psiberchip. Guards: three units watched Jaibriol's cell, six guards per unit. Each unit knew the location of one other unit. I reprogrammed EM16 so that on the next shift, units one and three knew about each other and unit two knew about itself. I reassigned unit two to a new area so its original location appeared to be another unit. At the original location, a hole now gaped in the security cage around Jaibriol.

I reprogrammed the Block Three defense systems to ignore certain input at a certain time. I reset the medical monitors that watched Jaibriol's cell to watch the guard outside the Block Three cafeteria. I switched the monitors to the holography darkroom, and I changed work shifts to clear workers out of certain areas. I reset the robot mice that scurried around, supposedly cleaning the base while they spied on people. Then I set up a program that would, minutes after my changes went into effect, undo every one of them, reset every system to its original state, wipe out the record of my changes, destroy itself, and delete the record of my deletions.

There were going to be a lot of confused people in the morning.

XV
Chains And Silk

I landed the flyer in darkness. No moon shed its softening rays on the desert, only the cold light of the stars, a multitude that glittered above the parched land. I ran across the rocky ground to a point several meters away. Then I touched a button on the leather guard around my wrist.

A circular section of rock about two meters wide sank into the ground. After it descended for a meter, it swiveled aside, uncovering a metal surface, the safe door for Block Three. Another touch on my wrist guard and the safe door descended silently. Finally it too swiveled aside, revealing a metal staircase spiraling into the darkness. A shaft plunged from my feet down to the top of those stairs. I touched my guard again and a vertical seam opened in the wall of the shaft, uncovering a ladder.

I climbed down to the landing and ran down the stairs. The security airlock at the bottom released to my command. When the inner door opened, light glared in my eyes. Pipes lined the walls and ceiling of the corridor: huge tubes big enough to crawl through, smaller pipes the width of my arm, tiny conduits no wider than a finger. I ran down the hall, my boots pounding the floor. The place might as well have been deserted. I penetrated some of the most advanced security systems ISC had created and not one alarm sounded.

It took less than two minutes to reach Jaibriol's cell. I unlocked it with a laserpick I had set to the light pattern it expected. The door opened into a small room with a ledge along the left wall.

Jaibriol lay sprawled on the ledge, asleep.

He was barefoot, and wore only the grey pants and short-sleeved shirt of a prison uniform. Bruises and welts covered his arms, and the marks of an Espring prong, which gave electric shocks. The lacerations on his wrists and ankles looked as if they came from chains. I wondered how his interrogators justified their methods, given that we had far less violent ways of extracting information. They didn't need torture. Then again, they probably felt no need to justify it, given their prisoner. Vengeance had no use for benevolence.

I ran over and shook his arm. "Jaibriol! Wake up."

He spoke thickly in Highton. "No more."

I grabbed his shoulders. "Wake up!"

He sat bolt upright and struck out with his fist, hitting me in the stomach with a bruising blow that knocked me onto the floor.

I scrambled to my feet. "It's me. Sauscony."

He stood up, looming over me, his fists clenched, his eyes unseeing.

"Jaibriol, it's m—"

"Qox." Although he looked straight at me, his gaze was unfocused. "Jaibriol Qox."

"I know who you are." I grabbed his arm. "Come on."

He shoved me away so hard, I slammed into the wall. I tried not to think of the time rushing by. As he raised his fists over my head, I spoke in as conversational a voice as I could manage. "If this is how you greet all of your potential girlfriends, you must have a lousy love life."

He stopped. "What?"

"Jaibriol, it's me. Sauscony. From Delos."

He stared at me, his face blank. I extended my arms, showing him I carried no weapons. "Remember? We met on Delos."

"Sauscony?" He lowered his arm. "Sauscony?"

"Remember? I was very rude at your mansion. I shot the place up and broke into your bedroom."

His gaze finally focused. "How did you get in here?"

"It wasn't easy. We have to go. Fast."

He looked past me at the open door. Then he broke into a run, sprinting for that sign of freedom. I sped after him, pointing to the right, and he veered that way. He stumbled on his bruised feet, almost falling, regaining his balance, stumbling, but he never slowed. We reached the exit shaft in no time. He ran up the stairs, bare feet thudding on the metal strips. At the landing, he grabbed a rung of the ladder, but when he tried to pull himself up, his swollen hands slipped. He fell, knocking his head against the ladder as he crumpled to the ground. He lay in a heap with his eyes closed.

No! I grabbed his arm, trying to heft him up, but he didn't stir. In his weakened state, the blow had knocked him out. Even with my augmented strength, I couldn't carry someone his size up a ladder. To have made it this far and be stopped by a damned ladder—no! I shook him hard. "Get up."

His eyes opened blearily. He fumbled for the ladder and closed his hand around the lowest rung. As he dragged himself to his feet, I held him around the waist. Then we climbed, with me just below him on the ladder. It seemed forever before we reached the top, but finally we were running across the desert to the flyer. If Jaibriol noticed the dustbite weeds jabbing his feet, he gave no sign. He threw himself through the open hatchway and fell across the deck as I scrambled after him. I slammed the hatch closed and ran to the cockpit.

I didn't waste time doing checks, I just taxied across the desert, bumping in the starlight, and took off, flying dark and silent. We soared through the night.

And finally, as Base Three dropped behind us, I dared to relax. We had made it. I had done the impossible, stealing the Highton Heir out from under the relentless eye of ISC.

I put the flyer on autopilot and turned to Jaibriol. He had collapsed into the co-pilot's seat and was lying with his head against its back, his chest rising and falling with his ragged breathing.

"I have a counterfeit ID for you," I said. The only disguise he would need were colored eye lenses and hair dye. No one would dream the Highton Heir was walking around free in the heart of an ISC starport.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I'm taking you to Delos. You can ask the Allieds for sanctuary."

He laughed harshly. "Sanctuary? They'll put me on trial for war crimes."

"What crimes?" I grimaced. "Giving bad speeches after Kryx Quaelen drugged you?"

He sat up straight. "How did you know that?"

"I could tell as soon as I saw you speak."

"No one will believe I didn't kill all those people at Tams."

"They will if I vouch for you."

He raised an eyebrow. "And what do you expect in return?"

"That you don't try to kill yourself again."

He snorted. "Don't play with me, Sauscony. What is your price for this so-called 'rescue'?"

I spoke quietly. "That when your father dies, you return from exile to become Emperor of Eube." It wouldn't be easy, but with enough planning he might pull it off. "Try to make peace with us. I mean genuinely try. Not those deceptions your father calls negotiations."

He shook his head as if to push away my words. "The deceptions are yours."

"You think this is a trick?"

His voice was cold. "A clever means of torture your brother has devised, I must admit. Convince the prisoner he is being rescued by a beautiful woman. It should make the reality of my prison all the more painful when we end up back there."

"You're wrong," I told him. Even if I had been working as Kurj's agent, he wouldn't have used such a subtle method. He preferred brute force.

Jaibriol shrugged. "Brute force failed. Why not try subtlety?"

I stiffened. "Why did you say that?"

"It's true, isn't it?"

"Jaibriol, if I were trying to trick you, why are your mental shield already dropping to me, when all Kurj's interrogators, even Kurj himself, couldn't force you to lower them?"

His brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't say anything about brute force or subtlety. I only thought it."

"I heard you say it."

"You heard it with your mind."

Silence.

I tried again. "Your barriers are activated by stress, aren't they? Or pain, anger, danger? Any situation your mind registers as threatening?"

"That's right."

"So why would they drop with me?"

He watched me with an unreadable expression. Then he laid his head back against his seat and closed his eyes again, his face pale. I waited, but he remained silent. Finally I turned to my controls.

Eventually he did speak, though. "You're the one who will need sanctuary. The Imperator will execute you himself when he discovers what you've done."

"I hid my tracks."

He turned to look at me. "It can't be possible to hide them all."

I met his gaze. "My brother believes your capture was arranged, a trick to get you here. He'll think your people broke you out."

"This would be unlikely, given his security."

I smiled. "It's a lot more likely than me doing it."

His lips barely moved, just the slightest curve upward. But it was a smile. "This is true."

My voice softened. "The Allieds will find a world where you can go into exile. Somewhere unpopulated, with no one to recognize you. A place where you can stay until it's time for you to become Emperor."

"What makes you think I want to be Emperor?"

"You must." I grimaced. "This undeclared war is destroying us. I don't see any way to end it without you. Can you imagine your father and my brother ever making peace? I sure as hell can't."

"Imperator Skolia will never negotiate with me." Jaibriol's voice tightened. "After these past few days, I doubt I could endure being in the same room with him."

"Kurj won't be Imperator forever."

"So you want me to go into exile and return someday to the Hightons."

"Yes."

"No."

"Jaibriol—I'm not making it a condition on freeing you. But please consider it." I let out a tired breath. "What will happen if Skolia falls to the armies of your father or the next Emperor or the one after him? Without us, the Allieds won't last a decade against your military. Is that what you want? An entire galaxy controlled by Hightons?"

"No."

"Then you—"

"No." He held out his arm. ""If I go back to them, this is what waits for me."

Although the sleeve of his shirt hid the top of his upper arm, the rest was bare. Bruises covered his forearm, also welts, cuts, and Espring burns. Torn skin crusted with blood surrounded his wrist in an ugly bracelet.

I raised my gaze to him. "You mean interrogation?"

"No. Look closer."

Puzzled, I looked again. Most of the marks were fresh, but older ones showed, too, white marks that looked like healing welts or scars. I touched a line that snaked down his palm. It had been there far longer than Jaibriol had been Kurj's prisoner.

"I don't understand," I said. "You didn't have these scars on Delos."

"No. I didn't." He sounded as if he were gritting his teeth.

"How did you get them?"

His gaze was hollow. "How do you think?"

"I don't know."

"You should. You've been there. What was his name? Tarque?"

I stared at him. "You've been a provider?"

His laugh was harsh. "Of course not. I am the Highton Heir. No one would dare even harbor such a thought about me, let alone try it."

"It was Quaelen, wasn't it? Kryx Quaelen, the Trade Minister."

His fist clenched on the arm of his chair. "He did what he felt necessary to train me."

"Gods, Jaibriol, didn't your father stop him?"

"He didn't know." His voice tightened. "My father cannot endure my presence. Perhaps he hates me, for my failures. I don't know. I don't think I care anymore."

"Maybe he doesn't come near you because he can't bear wanting to hurt his own son."

Jaibriol flexed his hands, opening and closing them. "He told me never to make a mistake, never to falter in any way that would reveal a hint of my deficiencies. But I can't be a perfect fortress all the time. It is impossible."

sNo one could. My brother came as close an anyone I knew to walling himself away from human contact, but even he had his needs. And Kurj didn't have to live among Hightons.

"As Emperor, you could make more tolerable conditions for yourself," I said. He could get rid of Quaelen, for starters. "Work with taskmakers instead of Aristos."

"I don't know." He leaned back and stared at the bulkhead above him. "Quaelen is powerful, even more so than I am as Heir. Removing him wouldn't be easy." He looked at me. "Neither of us need to be bound to our heritage, Sauscony. Come with me. We'll find a place where we never have to worry about Kryx Quaelen or anyone else."

Come with me. Just like that. Throw away everything I had worked for.

Alone in my rooms earlier today I had been sure of what I wanted. Now, faced with Jaibriol, my certainty crumbled. Like knew like. I turned back to my controls, unable to look at him. The flyer was fine on autopilot. Its routines for maneuvering in traffic were kicking in as we approached the city. A few more minutes and we would be at the starport.

"Sauscony?"

I continued to study the controls. "I can't go into exile."

He didn't say any more. Instead he made a picture in his mind, the two of us making love in a field of waving grasses.

"Stop it!" I swung around to him. "We can never have that."

"Why not?"

"You know why!"

He gave me an incredulous look. "You never asked to be the Imperial Heir. You don't have to martyr your sanity to it."

"Don't make it sound like some high-minded sacrifice. I want to be Imperator."

"Maybe."

I scowled at him. "What does that mean?"

"You think you have a responsibility. That you can't run away from it."

"What I think is my business."

"If you try to make yourself responsible for every Skolian alive, the pressure will kill you."

My anger flared. "So you want me to run off and fuck in the flowers for the rest of my life?"

He didn't back down. "Belittling what you want won't change how much it means to you."

The flyer's node spoke. "We are receiving a signal."

I glanced at the controls—and the blood drained from my face. A light glowed that I had prayed would remain dark.

"What's the matter?" Jaibriol asked.

"I'm not sure." I switched on the neutrino transmitter, cycling through the ISC channels. Kurj's voice suddenly cut into the air.

"—south of the city in a class 4B or 4C flyer. Stop all craft fitting that description. I repeat, stop all craft of that description."

No! Not now. Not when we were so close.

Only a few seconds of listening told it all. Kurj knew Jaibriol had escaped. A planet-wide cordon had snapped into place, every flight grounded, every passenger suspect. As Kurj reeled off commands, I yanked on the flystick and veered to the east, away from the starport.

We had almost made it. But almost hadn't been enough. What gave us away? One of my aunt's watchers on the mesh? Maybe a guard had decided to check on Jaibriol, or I had tripped alarm I hadn't known about. Whatever had happened, my plans were shot to hell.

Kurj's transmission continued, coordinating search units. At least they were looking for Trader commandos instead of me. We were over the suburbs, immersed in traffic, one among hundreds of flyers that fit the description Kurj gave. But I knew ISC efficiency. Once Kurj set his machine into motion, even I couldn't escape. No place could evade his inexorable grip.

Except one.

I brought the flyer around in a tight circle, the city pivoting below until we headed north. The suburbs soon thinned out, giving way to desert.

An ISC flyer appeared on my holomap, matching our course and speed. A voice crackled on the comm. "Identify yourself."

"Read your monitor, mister," I said.

"Sorry, Primary Valdoria. ID verified. Go on through."

"Are you on the city cordon?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Any luck finding them?"

"We think they're headed for the starport."

"All right. Carry on."

We were hailed twice more before we reached the mountains, and as we flew into the foothills, another flyer intercepted us. I hadn't expected Kurj to waste craft out here, given the extensive systems already guarding this range. They protected the palace, the only dwelling within thousands of square kilometers. Hundreds of installations watched us from peaks and valleys. Satellites sailed in low orbits overhead, one after another, in a pattern designed to cover the area at all times. All to guard one empty building.

As the mountains closed around us, my comm crackled with a female voice I would have taken for human if I hadn't known better. "Please identify yourself."

"Transmitting ID," I said.

"Greetings, Sauscony," the computer said. "Welcome home."

We continued on, passing through the best safeguards the Imperialate had to offer. Not one stopped us. Why should they? I was one of the people they were supposed to protect. But even where we were going—the Imperial palace—we wouldn't be able to hide long.

Sooner or later, Skolia's mighty Imperator would come home.

* * *

My bedroom in the palace made even my apartment on the world Forshires look plain. The door knob was gold, like the old fashioned key that unlocked it. The room was blue: ceiling, walls, carpets, and the bed on the raised dais. Gold filigree scrolled around the windows. Tall vases stood against the walls, priceless works of art from some ancient civilization on a planet with a name I couldn't remember. The closet was as big as a living room. Dresses hung there, soft sexy things I had never worn. I suspected the room was more my idea of what I was supposed to like than what actually made me comfortable. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate its beauty. It pleased me as much today as the first day I had seen it finished. But it had never felt as if it were mine.

Jaibriol limped wearily across the carpet and climbed the dais. As he lay on the bed, its silk coverings rustled under his weight. I sat next to him, my Jumbler dangling in my hand. The weapon was useless here. All my training, my years of experience—what good was it now? Yes, the last place anyone would think to look for Jaibriol Qox was the Imperator's home. But sooner or later, ISC would search even the last place.

"I'm sorry," I said. "All I've done is delay the inevitable."

He touched the Jumbler. "At least this way I don't have to die slowly."

"I'm not going to shoot you."

"Even if our only other choice is recapture? We can't escape. Your brother will execute us."

I stared at the gun. Then I dropped it on the floor. We had come so close. Just a little more time and we would have made it off-planet. But close wasn't good enough.

I stretched out on my stomach next to Jaibriol. Lying on his back, he trailed his finger along my cheek. "When I saw you in my cell, I thought it was another of my dreams."

"Dreams?" I asked.

"After we met on Delos—whenever I was lonely, I dreamed you came to me."

So I wasn't the only one who had struggled with the memory of that night. It helped, knowing that. I turned on my side and propped my head up on my elbow as I gazed at his face. I had forgotten how handsome he was, even by Highton standards. It wouldn't surprise me if Ur Qox had ordered doctors to fine-tune his appearance when Jaibriol was a boy. Anything to further enhance his son's image as a hero of the Traders. Anything to draw attention away from Jaibriol's inability to function as a true Highton.

Dark circles rimmed his eyes, though. His hair was rumpled. Shimmering black Highton hair. It was so odd to see it on someone so unlike a Highton. I touched his lips, running my finger over the top one, then the bottom. They felt chapped. Dry and cracked. Also warm. So warm. Rhon lips, full and inviting. I lowered my head, bringing my lips to his—

Jaibriol pushed me away.

I flushed. What was wrong with me, trying to seduce a man who had just spent days subjected to a brutal interrogation supervised by my own brother? "I'm sorry."

He just stared up at me. Across the room, the old spire-clock ticked softly, tick-tick, marking off seconds. Then Jaibriol slid his arm around my neck and pulled my head down. I could smell him, a musky scent, heady and masculine. I closed my eyes, letting my lips linger on his mouth. It felt as good as it looked, warm and inviting. He lay tense under me, though, more like a plank of wood than a man with a woman he desired.

I lifted my head. "What's wrong?"

He pushed up on his elbows, bringing his eyes level with mine. "It's not you. It's anyone."

"Any lover?"

"Yes. No. No lovers."

"You mean you've never had one?"

"That's right."

"I'd have thought every eligible woman among the Hightons would be throwing herself at you."

"I didn't want a Highton lover." He grimaced. "Would you?"

"No." With his barriers dropping to me, I recognized that same aloneness in him that I had felt the night on the docks, in the cover of the sea-lapping Delos night. He was lonely—achingly, bruisingly lonely. The wound had become even deeper, scarred around the edges, raw in the center.

"Couldn't you take a provider?" I asked.

"I didn't want one." He pressed his palm against my chest, between my breasts, as if he were keeping me at bay. "Let someone that close and you become vulnerable."

"How could a provider hurt you?"

"By recognizing me." Softly he said, "By recognizing herself in me."

I exhaled, understanding. "You had no friends at all?"

His face twisted. "I had Lord Quaelen, my 'beloved' mentor and guide. He didn't like my showing attention to anyone." Hatred sparked in his voice. "If I did, he found a reason to punish me."

"Couldn't you get rid of him?"

"He's a master at Highton intrigue, even better than my father." Jaibriol's voice cracked. "Quaelen is empty, like a hole waiting to swallow me up. They're all that way—my father, my so-called mother the Empress, all of them."

"I'm sorry." Gods, that sounded trite.

He watched me, concentrating, as if he could absorb me into himself. Then, with no warning, he pulled me down and rolled me onto my back, bringing his mouth down on mine. My lips parted and his tongue came into my mouth, first questing, then probing with more urgency. But it felt wrong. Not him, but me. I wanted to jerk away. What was the matter with me?

He made a soft, aroused sound as he moved his lips to my ear. "Sweet Sauscony." His voice murmured in a familiar cadence, a soft rhythm I recognized . . .

And the memory came to me, what I had so often heard it in my mind during combat, thoughts like acid that poured over me: Die, sweet Jagernaut. Die.

Ah, hell. I sat up so fast, my fingernails scraped the scabs on his arms. He sat more slowly, emotions washing across his face: surprise, embarrassment, desire. "What's wrong?"

I took a shaky breath. Of course he acted Highton. He was Highton.

"It's only cultural," he murmured.

"I'm all right." Across the room, the spire-clock ticked loudly.

"Try this." Jaibriol nudged me onto my stomach. I lay warily, tensed and stiff as he straddled my hips so he was sitting on my bottom with his knees on either side of my waist. Then he started to rub my back.

"Oh." I closed my eyes. "Oh, yes." It felt heavenly.

In a few moments, though, he quit. I looked over my shoulder. "Why did you stop?"

His lips quirked upward. "I'm looking."

"At my backside?" I snorted. "What's so interesting about that?"

Jaibriol smiled, a full one this time. "Maybe it's not to you." He rubbed my behind, his motions more like caresses than a massage. "That's because you can see it any time you want."

Such a beautiful smile. I had forgotten the way it lit up his face. In that moment, he wasn't the embittered heir to an Empire. Instead, he looked like what he should have been if his heritage hadn't ruined his life, a healthy young man enjoying his first experience with a woman. I sighed and laid my head on the pillows.

Jaibriol kept massaging, his hands moving in firm, sensual circles. My muscles relaxed, and I basked in the sensations, soaking in his musky scent, that tantalizing scent that made me want him to rub more private places. He lay on top of me and took hold of my thighs, one hand on each leg, his erection pushing the cloth of his trousers against my behind—

Like Tarque.

Combat mode on, my spinal node thought.

For flaming sake. "Jaibriol, stop!" That would certainly be romantic if I hefted him onto the floor. Combat mode off, I thought.

He lifted his body, holding himself above me. "What's wrong?"

I rolled onto my back. "It's all right." To the hell with Tarque. I wasn't going to let that damn Aristo ruin my life ten years after he had died. Jaibriol and I only had a few hours left, hours far too precious to waste.

I cupped my hands around his face and pulled him into a kiss. His smell wafted around us, even stronger than before. Even though I knew the Rhon produced different pheromones than other humans, I wasn't prepared for the intensity of it. His scent evoked reactions from my body far stronger than I had ever before experienced.

Jaibriol turned his head to kiss my palm. Then he sat up on his knees, straddling me, and put his finger between my breasts, poking it inside the magnetic seam that closed my jumpsuit. As he slid his hand down my front, the jumpsuit fell open, leaving my skin bare. He rubbed his palms over my breasts, and my nipples hardened, sticking up like an invitation.

We undressed each other slowly, exploring. He dropped my boots off the bed, and the heels clanged on my Jumbler. We slipped under the covers, between the silken sheets, bare skin against bare skin. I reached down, guiding him—there. As he moved inside of me, I closed my eyes, murmuring in his ear, meaningless noises. And finally we merged into a full Rhon meld, our minds blended, a joining even stronger than the one on Delos. It built as we built, stronger, higher, closer—until I surged into my peak, the release coming with gratifying intensity.

It didn't stop there. Jaibriol was still going, his mind part of mine. I kept building with him even after my own body had spent itself in orgasm. His excitement pulled us higher until I couldn't bear it any longer. But I couldn't stop. Then his climax burst over us both, wringing our bodies with spasms that felt so good, I quit thinking altogether.

Sometime later, I became aware again. Jaibriol was lying on top of me, his cheek against mine. Sweat trickled off his chest and down my breasts. When I stirred, he lifted his head and kissed my closed eyelids.

"That was worth waiting for," he said softly.

"Yes. It was." What a monumental understatement.

"How long do you think before . . .?"

I opened my eyes. "Before Kurj finds us?"

"Yes."

"Maybe tonight. Probably a few hours." I wasn't sure what Kurj would do when he realized just how thoroughly I had betrayed him. It wouldn't be pretty, and I doubted it would be over quickly.

"Sauscony." Jaibriol looked down at me. "I don't want them to do to you what they've been doing to me." He leaned over the side of the bed—and came with my Jumbler. He laid it between my breasts and lowered himself onto me so the gun formed a cold lump between our bodies. Taking my finger, he set it against the firing stud.

I felt as if I couldn't breathe. "No."

"We'll die anyway. You know that." His voice cracked. "We both know what it's like to be tortured until you wonder how you can endure anymore. I don't want to die like that. At least this way it will be in love instead of pain."

I clenched the gun. He was right, but my instinct for self preservation was too strong. I couldn't do it.

He spoke against my ear. "I can't fire it. Only you can."

I nudged off the safety and set my finger on the firing stud. Just one push—

A knock sounded at the door.

I jerked out from under Jaibriol and off the bed so fast that the covers flew into the air. I moved by reflex, grabbing Jaibriol's shirt and yanking it over my head, I didn't want to face our captors in the vulnerability of my nakedness. I raised the Jumbler, aimed at the door—

And when it opened, I almost shot my own father.

XVI
Heart Of The Web

He stood there, blinking behind his spectacles. He wore glasses because he didn't trust Skolian doctors enough to let them work on his eyes. He kept his hair long, in the style of his people, the silver-streaked locks framing his face and brushing his shoulders. He was a well built man of average height with heart-stopping good looks that the public loved and that Kurj found useful for counteracting his own harsh image.

He looked at me standing there with my gun, dressed in only a gray prison shirt. Then he looked at Jaibriol, who was sitting naked on the bed. Finally he spoke to me in his native tongue, my first language. "Are you going to kill me, Sauscony?"

The thought that I might have hurt him was so upsetting I could hardly speak. I lowered the gun and clicked on the safety. "No. Never. You know that."

He walked over to me. "That was you I felt in Kyle space last night, wasn't it?"

"Yes. I hid from you."

"I received a message from Kurj earlier. He told me to stay at the palace, where it's safe. He believes Trader commandos have infiltrated the area." He glanced at Jaibriol, who was pulling on his pants. Then he turned to me. "Is that true?"

"No. But Kurj thinks it is."

"I see." It was obvious, from his expression, that he didn't see at all.

Fortunately Jaibriol stayed on the bed; my father had enough to handle right now without the added intimidation of the Highton Heir towering over him. Outwardly my father didn't show much reaction. He just stood looking at us. But I felt him grappling with the situation like a wrestler fighting an opponent who far outweighed him.

After a moment, he spoke in Iotic, an obsolete language used only by scholars and the Skolian nobility. And my family. He had learned it because it was my mother's native language. He was probably using it for Jaibriol's sake; just as I had studied Highton, Jaibriol would have learned Iotic.

"Sauscony." He adjusted his spectacles. "The man on your bed looks like Jaibriol Qox."

"Yes, I know." I shifted my weight. "That's because he is Jaibriol Qox."

My father cleared his throat. "The Highton Heir. That Jaibriol Qox."

"Yes. That one." I doubted there were any others.

He peered at Jaibriol, who had on his trousers now. "Why were you sitting naked on my daughter's bed?" As Jaibriol opened his mouth, my father said, "No. Never mind. I don't think I want to hear the answer."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Do?" My father scowled at me. "Before or after I have heart failure?"

I couldn't help but smile. "Before, I hope."

"This isn't amusing, Sauscony."

I stopped smiling. "No. It's not."

He motioned at Jaibriol. "Please explain this to me."

"I helped him escape," I said. "That's why Kurj thinks commandos are loose on Diesha."

"Kurj captured Jaibriol Qox? And you freed him?"

I nodded. "After the alarm sounded, the only safe place was here."

"The Imperator's palace."

"Yes."

He seemed more bewildered than angry. "And just exactly what prompted this urge of yours to free Jaibriol Qox?"

I spoke softly. "Touch his mind. Then you'll understand."

He didn't even turn. But I felt his attention shift as he reached toward Jaibriol's mind. Although I wasn't sure Jaibriol consciously realized what was happening, he responded, raising his blocks more by instinct than intention.

My father's forehead creased. He sat in a chair at a table by my bed, looking at neither Jaibriol nor me. He concentrated harder—and Jaibriol blocked him again.

My father changed his approach as if he were trying to catch a skittish lyrine colt. He nudged Jaibriol here, there, and there, subtle mental knocks that came and went so gently, Jaibriol probably didn't feel them. Even I could barely follow them. But that didn't work, either. So my father came questioning to my mind, trying to reach Jaibriol through my link with him. As I relaxed my barriers, my father flowed into the link—

—and stood up so fast, he knocked over his chair. Jaibriol rose up to his knees, clutching the bedpost as if preparing to jump down and defend himself. I didn't think he even realized his mental barriers had been bypassed.

My father stared at him. "You aren't an Aristo."

Jaibriol answered in perfect Iotic. "Of course I am an Aristo."

"No," my father said. "You aren't."

Jaibriol's fist clenched the post. "Are you telling me you don't consider me your equal?"

My father shook his head. "No. I'm saying I think you are like me."

"Jaibriol." I sat next to him on the bed and laid my hand on his leg. "He won't hurt you."

He turned to me, his exhaustion falling like a blanket across my shoulders. Although he didn't let go of the post, his grip on it eased enough that his knuckles were no longer white.

My father glanced at me. "Does Kurj know he is Rhon?"

"Not yet," I said. "But when he finds out, he'll be certain Jaibriol came to destroy the Triad."

He turned back to Jaibriol. "Did you?"

Jaibriol met his gaze steadily. "No."

My father considered him. Then he nodded. That was it. A simple nod. No more questions. No skepticism. No threats. Nothing. Just a nod. I couldn't believe it.

You wouldn't be here like this if you didn't trust him, my father thought.

You know, I thought. You're very different from Kurj.

He smiled slightly. So your mother tells me.

"I thought you and she were back home." I spoke out loud, realizing how strange our silence must seem to Jaibriol. "Seeing the grandchildren and all."

He pushed his spectacles up his nose. "My plans changed."

That didn't sound right. Given the choice of going home and being with my mother, the two things he most enjoyed doing, or coming to Diesha and being around Kurj, I couldn't fathom his choosing Kurj. "Why?"

"I had a convulsion."

What? I went over to him. "Aren't you following your treatment?"

"Of course. I don't know why it happened." He paused. "Actually, it wasn't one convulsion. I had several."

My pulse jumped. "How many?"

"I don't know. We were at home. I felt . . .strange. The next I knew, I was waking up in that hospital near the village. That offworld doctor made a fuss. She said I had a series of generalized tonic-clonic attacks back-to-back. She sent me here. I didn't want to come but she insisted." He scowled. "She contacted Kurj and he sent a ship for me."

I took his hands. "Are you all right now?"

"I feel fine. None of the doctors found anything wrong."

"And you don't know why you had the seizures?"

"Probably the nightmare I had, that's all." He squeezed my hands and then let them go. "Stop looking at me with this worried face. You're as bad as those doctors."

I had never heard of a nightmare giving him epileptic seizures before. "What did you dream?"

"Someone was giving me shocks with an Espring. I couldn't stop them because I was chained." He squinted at me. "It is these machines, Sauscony. I don't even know names for half of them. Mesh nodes and robots and things. They give me nightmares. It means nothing."

I hardly heard him finish. One word kept jumping out at me. Espring. Like the interrogators had used on Jaibriol. "Who chained you?"

"I don't know." He waved his hand in dismissal. "Old soldiers have such dreams."

About an Espring? I hadn't even realized he knew what it was. He had spent most of his life in what, by Skolian standards, was abject poverty. I doubted anything resembling an Espring existed on the entire planet.

"Had you been talking about Esprings with mother?" I asked.

"No. It was nothing, Sauscony."

"Dreaming about electric shocks is nothing?"

He shifted his weight. "Actually, I dreamed I was being interrogated."

On the bed behind me, Jaibriol drew in a sharp breath.

Somehow I made my voice stay calm. "Do you remember why?"

"Someone kept asking about my father's army. I don't know why I would dream such a thing. My father died when I was a few months old." He rubbed his wrists, massaging them in the place where, on Jaibriol, the skin had been ripped raw. "It was so vivid. It felt real, even after I woke up."

A chill went through me. Somehow he had tapped into Jaibriol's interrogation. Through Kurj? Through me?

I knew Kurj. When he realized what I had done, he would have me questioned thoroughly, as much in response to my betrayal as to find out why. If Jaibriol's interrogation caused my father so much distress, what would happen when it was me on that bench? Despite my father's claim that his convulsions were "nothing," I knew better. If he were having status epilepticus—back-to-back grand mal attacks—he was in a lot more danger than he was willing to admit.

Sauscony. My father motioned toward Jaibriol. You truly want this man?

I made an image of my mother. What would your life be like without her?

Your mother is not one quarter Highton.

Is what you saw in Jaibriol's mind so monstrous?

My father exhaled. No. Quite the contrary. He considered Jaibriol, who was clearly trying to figure out why we were staring at each other and running through gestures and expressions as if we were holding a conversation.

"The two of you must ask the Allieds for sanctuary," my father said.

If only life were that simple. "We can't get off Diesha."

"Couldn't you have a pilot fly out here from the starport?" he asked. "Take the ship to Delos. No one but the three of us will know you have a passenger."

How did I explain a planet-wide cordon to a man who understood war in terms of cavalry and troops? "We can't get a ship, not without clearance from Kurj. And he won't give it."

"If I had another convulsion," my father said, "you would have to summon a doctor."

My pulse leapt. "You think you're going to have another one?"

He smiled slightly. "It could be arranged."

Ah. That would certainly bring out here. However much Kurj resented his stepfather, he needed him in good shape for the Triad. "But even if he sends a ship, he will only clear us for planetary travel, perhaps to a hospital on another continent, somewhere he considers safer than here. He won't allow anyone to leave Diesha until he catches Jaibriol."

"That doesn't mean you can't leave anyway."

"I don't see how."

"You freed Lord Qox."

"That was before ISC went on alert. I doubt anyone could get out now."

He met my gaze squarely. "I'm not asking if anyone can do it. I'm asking if you can."

That caught me by surprise. To say he had never been thrilled with my choice of careers was an understatement. It rarely occurred to me that he might actually have a high opinion of my abilities. "I don't know if I can. But I'm willing to try."

"Good. Then it is decided."

"It's not that simple." As if there were anything remotely simple about what he had proposed. "Even if we get off Diesha—which will be almost impossible—but if we do, we'll running fast and desperate with who knows how many warships after us. They'll alert every sentry from here to Delos. We would never make it there."

He pushed up his spectacles. "Then you must already have a place to go when you leave. Somewhere unknown to ISC or the Traders."

"If the place is unknown to ISC, how am I going find it?"

"Perhaps if we ask the Allieds."

How could I make him see? "We can't ask anyone anything. Communications are blocked."

His gaze never wavered. "My Prime line is never blocked."

Did he realize what he was saying? "You can't use the Prime."

"Why not? My understanding is that Kurj's security systems won't report my use of it."

"They won't even know. No more than you would know if Kurj or Aunt Deha used their Primes. But that's not the point. You can't use it for this."

"I don't see why not."

"Father, you can't use your hotline to the Allied President to ask for her help in solving a personal problem. It's meant only for crises that threaten galactic stability."

He spoke quietly. "If the imminent execution of the Highton and Imperial Heirs doesn't threaten galactic stability, I don't know what does."

That stopped me. I had been so caught up in events, I hadn't had time to think through the ramifications. Our executions would tear apart the Rhon. In the midst of that chaos, an enraged Ur Qox would throw his military against us, seeking vengeance for his son's death while we were weakened with internal strife. Our efforts to convince the Allieds we were a sound, calm government would collapse. We could end up justifying their worst fears, destroying what little trust we had built with them.

My father indicated the table. "You must set up the line, Sauscony. I don't know how."

I sat down, wondering if he had any idea how incongruous it was to the rest of us that he powered the Kyle-Mesh, yet didn't know how to access it. He was illiterate, both with written language and with computers. Sometimes his refusal to learn bewildered me, other times it worried me, and yet other times I wondered if he had a disability he refused to acknowledge for fear of appearing even more deficient than he already felt when faced with my mother's universe. But Kyle space—a universe few people could even access, let alone use—was child's play to him, a place where he didn't need to read or write. All he had to do was think.

I pushed a panel on the table and it swelled until it formed a sphere about half a meter across. As the sphere opened into a console, a horizontal section cleared into a holoscreen.

I glanced at my father. "I need the name and security codes for your Prime account."

"The account name is Valdor. The passwords are the names of all you children converted into code by EM16's level-four security file."

I nodded, managing to act as if what he had just done—revealing the Prime's prized security codes in the presence of the Highton Heir—was completely normal rather than the act of treason we both knew it to be.

I accessed his Triad account and set up the links to his Prime. Three Prime nodes existed, one for each Triad member, each independent of the others. As I waited for the security to clear, I heard footsteps. Glancing back, I saw Jaibriol standing behind me. He wasn't trying to see what I was doing, which is what I would have done in his position. Instead he was watching my father.

My father frowned at him. "Yes?"

"I was wondering why you needed to see doctors," Jaibriol said. "You look so healthy."

"I have epilepsy," my father said.

I stared at him, unable to believe he had so calmly revealed a secret he guarded from everyone but his family.

"How could that be?" Jaibriol asked. "We have no hint of it in our files on you."

"Why should I tell any of you?"

"I'm just surprised our intelligence hadn't discovered it."

My father hardly seemed to hear. He was concentrating again, probing Jaibriol's mind. Then he spoke in a gentler voice. "My family died when I was an infant, killed in a rock slide while they traveled. I had my first seizure then. The doctors believe my mind hadn't yet separated from my mother's, so the shock of her death injured my brain."

I couldn't fathom why he was telling Jaibriol. He rarely talked about his epilepsy. If neurons in his brain became overstimulated, they sent out an abnormal flood of electrical discharges, causing him to pass out while his body stiffened and his jaw clenched. Sometimes he turned blue and stopped breathing for several moments. His body convulsed until his neurons fatigued, after which he went limp. When he woke up, he was tired and confused. He apparently never recalled the actual seizures. The first time I had seen it happen, as a child, I had been terrified he would die. The doctors told me he turned blue because the vessels in his skin constricted so more blood could flow to his brain.

What they didn't say, what I didn't learn until years later, was that his attacks were the most violent they had seen. The extra neural structures in his brain—those magnificent paras that made him such a gifted telepath—also made him agonizingly sensitive to the neural overload that caused seizures. By the time his brain had finished maturing, in his adolescence, his attacks had become so severe that without treatment he could have died from their intensity and frequency. He survived to eighteen due to the unflagging attention of his guardian, but they had both realized he would probably never reach twenty.

My mother had needed to see only one convulsion to realize that what he believed were "spirit afflictions" were some kind of neural seizure. Even now, when he knew epilepsy was a treatable condition that didn't prevent him from living a normal life, he spoke of it only with family members or the few doctors he had come to trust. That he would reveal anything at all to Jaibriol astounded me. Something was going on between the two of them, something I couldn't follow.

"My condition isn't hereditary," my father said.

Jaibriol spoke quietly. "That wouldn't change my feelings for Sauscony. But if she and I go into exile, it's unlikely our children will have access to the kind of treatment you receive here."

"They probably won't have epilepsy," my father told him. "None of my children do."

Children. It was a sobering thought. Our offspring, if we survived this mess, would be both Rhon and Qox. Gods only knew what that birthright would mean.

A light flashed on the console, accompanied by a chime.

My father glanced at me. "Is the Prime ready?"

"No." Damn! "It's Kurj. He's trying to reach you." I activated the comm, but left off the visual. Motioning my father over, I pointed at the "acknowledge" panel.

He touched the panel. "Yes?"

Kurj's voice snapped into the air. "Eldri, have you seen Soz?"

My father stiffened. His full name was Eldrinson Althor Valdoria. Eldri was a nickname that only my mother, his former guardian, and Kurj used. My father liked it from my mother and didn't mind it from his guardian, but Kurj was another matter.

He spoke coolly. "Yes, she is here."

Jaibriol stared at him like a man betrayed. But as he started to speak, I grabbed his wrist and shook my head. The pilots who had intercepted our flyer would have reported it. My father didn't dare deny I was at the palace.

"Put her on," Kurj said.

I leaned over the speaker. "I'm right here."

"I want you to stay with him," Kurj said. "Until we find Qox."

My shoulders relaxed. So. He thought I had come to protect my father. It was a logical conclusion, or would have been had I known he was here. Even with all the security that guarded the palace, Kurj would prefer that my father wasn't alone. What better bodyguard could he have than a Jagernaut Primary with far more than a military interest in his safety?

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Good. Out." Kurj cut the connection as abruptly as he had initiated it.

I looked at my father. "He seemed to think I knew you were here."

"Didn't you? Your message came in yesterday."

I had forgotten about that. "It was a ruse. I was letting Kurj know I had arrived."

He smiled. "I was all set to answer. I was going to suggest we have dinner after Kurj made the announcement."

"What announcement?"

"Sauscony, you needn't be modest."

I regarded him blankly. "Modest about what?"

"He hasn't spoken to you yet?"

"About what?"

He exhaled. "I'm sorry. I assumed you knew."

"Knew what?"

"He made his choice of heir," my father said simply. "You."

I felt like a Magrail train that had slammed into a wall at three hundred kilometers per hour. "What?"

"Kurj chose you as his heir. He signed the documents this morning."

I just stared at him. Then I put my elbow on the table and rested my forehead on my palm. My mind was like a dry sponge with water running off it. I couldn't absorb his words.

The realization gradually soaked into my mind. Kurj had made a choice. It wasn't a battle anymore. I didn't have to fight Althor any longer. I didn't have to spend every day fearing the time would come when we were forced to make Kurj's choice for him. It was over. I had won.

The timing made sense. I couldn't image a more effective way to weaken Trader morale than for Kurj to announce he had chosen his successor in the same speech where he revealed he had captured the Highton Heir. It would make Ur Qox's dramatic announcement of Jaibriol's existence pale in comparison.

"I don't . . ." My voice cracked. "Oh, gods."

My father sat in the chair next to mine. "I know I fought your decision to join the military. It was difficult for me to accept."

I just shook my head. What could I say? Besides, he and I had long ago set that issue to rest. Or more accurately, we had grown tired of arguing about it.

"Sauscony, listen to me." He took hold of my arm, making me look at him. "I've watched you all these years. I've seen what your life has done to you. What you've done with it. You aren't Kurj. You never will be."

I stiffened. "Meaning you don't think I can do his job?"

"No. That's not what I meant at all."

I struggled not to grit my teeth. "So what did you mean? That you think Althor would have been a better choice? Because he's more like Kurj?"

He spoke dryly. "Being like Kurj hardly guarantees a person is suited to lead."

"Then I don't see what you're getting at."

"What I am trying to say, not very articulately I'm afraid, is that I think Kurj chose well."

That stopped me, really stopped me. Among my father's people, women had never fought as soldiers, much less war leaders. It was far different than the overreaching culture of the Imperialate, which was egalitarian now but had its roots in a matriarchy. Although I had always known my father loved me as much as my brothers, it was different. His sons were his pride. He saw them as warriors, me as the oddity. The last thing I expected to hear was that he considered me the best choice for Imperator. I didn't know what to say, so instead I hugged him. He held me tightly, resting his head on top mine.

Finally I let go. "What did you mean when you said you had seen what my life has done to me."

"It's hardening you," he said. "Twenty more years and I won't recognize you." He swallowed. "A century and what will you be?"

I thought of the life I had imagined yesterday: guarded day and night by Jagernauts, except when I came here, to this cold vault of a palace; living in constant suspicion of everyone, even Rex, who deserved better than to remember why he was crippled every time he saw his wife. No, I didn't want it that way. But it came with the job—and I wanted the job.

Except it wasn't mine to have. Not any more.

My father scowled. "What, you're giving up? Deposed rulers have been going into exile since time immemorial. You and Prince Jaibriol would hardly be the first to flee and then return when the situation was more in your favor."

"If we disappear, our right to our titles disappears with us."

"I don't claim it won't be difficult. But each of you is the rightful heir to your position."

I saw the tears in his eye and heard the words he didn't say. Come back. Come back so I know you're alive. My own eyes felt wet. "You're a very decent human being, you know that?"

He reddened. "I'm a backward farmer from a backward planet." He motioned at the console. "If we don't reach the Allied President, I will soon be a farmer minus one daughter."

His account had finished setting up his Prime. I double-checked the link to Earth and then sent the call. It would go straight through the Kyle-Mesh, via telops, to a nanochip implanted in the Allied President's body. The pathway from Prime to Earth was secured; the telops would never know they had transmitted a message. My pulse surged as I stood up, offering the chair to my father. As he slid into it, Jaibriol and I stepped back, away from the table, so we wouldn't be visible when the Allied President came on visual. Then my father plugged the psiphon into his wrist.

The dry voice of Prime crackled in the air. "Line activated. Prepare to receive transmission."

I gripped Jaibriol's hand. This was it. If the Allieds turned us down, we had nowhere to turn.

"Ready," my father said.

The holoscreen on the table tilted upward and an image appeared, a woman's face and shoulders. A few lines creased her distinguished features, and grey hair curled around her cheeks. I had seen that face hundreds of times in news broadcasts. Tonight she looked different, tired and drawn, as if she had been sleeping when Prime paged her.

She nodded to my father. "Your Highness."

He nodded to her. "President Calloway."

She spoke in Skolian, cutting straight to the point. "What is wrong?"

"Two people need sanctuary. They must go to a place where no one can find them, somewhere unknown to either Imperial or Trader intelligence." My father paused. "Somewhere unknown to Allied intelligence as well, if possible."

"Why?" Calloway asked. "Who are these people?"

"The why is more simple than the who. If they don't receive sanctuary, they will die."

"And how does this concern Earth?"

"Their executions will escalate our war with the Eubians."

Calloway considered him. "You must be aware I can't interfere with military matters concerning any Eube-Skolian war. Were I to do so, it would be tantamount to making a statement of alliance that doesn't currently exist between your people and mine."

"And surely you realize," my father said, "that if we fall to the Traders, you're next."

"You believe the execution of these two people threatens the Imperialate that much?"

"Yes."

She spoke firmly. "I need to know who they are."

"I can't give you their names until we have an agreement."

"I can't give you an agreement until I understand the problem."

My father was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Madam President, before I give you their identities, I need your word that you will reveal this conversation to no one."

Jaibriol's hand tightened around mine. Like me, he must have been present during dealings of his government with Calloway. He would know what I knew: her word was good—which was why she gave it so rarely. What if she refused my father? As soon as she saw us, she would realize she was being asked to intervene in a matter that could tear apart the Rhon. She had no way to know what would happen of she sided with my father.

"You're asking a great deal," she said.

"With reason," my father said.

"And if I don't promise my silence?"

He didn't answer immediately. I felt his turmoil. He was going to tell her even without her guarantee. If she contacted Kurj—no, we couldn't let that happen. I would no longer be the only one who had committed treason, and Kurj had far less desire to see my father alive than me.

Father, no! I thought. Don't do it.

He took a breath and spoke to Calloway. "If you can't give me your word, people may die. Members of the Rhon."

"And if I do give it?"

"No one but you and I will ever know."

"What about the two people in question?"

"They also. But we will send them where no one can find them."

Her expression remained guarded. "You're asking me to enter into pact with one member of the Triad, an agreement you intend to keep secret from the others."

"Yes."

"But you won't tell me why until I make this pact."

"I must ask you to trust my judgment."

She spoke dryly. "Judgment and politics are rarely easy bedfellows."

"Nevertheless, I ask for your trust."

Whatever she was thinking, she revealed nothing. As the silence lengthened, I glanced at Jaibriol. Sweat had gathered at his temple. I could feel moisture on my hand where it gripped his.

"Very well," Calloway said. "I give you my word."

I made a small sound, just a rush of breath. My father's shoulders lowered, coming down from a hunched position I hadn't realized they had taken. Turning, he beckoned to us. As we walked over to the console, he moved out of the way. Then Jaibriol and I were in front of the screen, I dressed only in a prison shirt that was the obvious partner to his trousers. We stood there half naked, holding hands, and regarded President Calloway.

Her mouth opened. "My God."

My father came to stand with us. "Will you help them?"

She blew out a gust of air, stirring a tendril of hair about her face. "I don't understand."

"They think they're in love," my father said.

"I still don't understand," Calloway said. "Primary Valdoria, do you truly want to go into exile with a Highton?" She paused. "Could you even survive living with him?"

"He's not Highton," I said.

"No?" She turned to Jaibriol. "Then how in heaven's name are you the Highton Heir?"

He spoke quietly. "I'm a Rhon psion."

Calloway's eyebrows went up. It was a good five second before she said, "That must have taken some doing." She glanced at my father. "It seems to me that he poses a far greater threat to you alive than dead." She grimaced. "To all of us."

My father shook his head. "What Emperor Qox wants from his son is probably impossible for Jaibriol to give."

"You trust Jaibriol Qox because he's Rhon?"

"Yes." He paused. "I once learned about a fish native to your planet. To reproduce, it must swim upriver to reach the place where it was spawned or die in the process. The Rhon are like this in our drive to mate with our own kind. No matter what the barriers, we fight until we overcome them." He glanced at me and his voice caught. "Or die trying."

"Why can't they go to Delos?" Calloway asked.

"We can't leave Diesha," I said. "The planet is on full military alert."

She gave me a long, hard look. Then she spoke to my father. "You're asking me to become a co-conspirator in an action that directly challenges the authority of the Imperator."

"I'm asking you to help avert a crisis that threatens three interstellar governments."

"If I help you now, and it ever becomes known—" She let her sentence hang.

My father jumped on the opening. "My daughter is an expert in covert operations. She can remove every trace of these negotiations."

Calloway had to know he was telling the truth. Her people would have a dossier on me just as extensive as the ones we had on her top officers. She leaned back in her armchair and rested her elbow on its arm with her cheek on her hand. She didn't watch us while she thought, just stared at a point off in space. Silence filled the room except for the ticking of the spire-clock. Tick-tick. Tick. Tick-tick. I wished the maddening thing would stop.

Calloway spoke. "I will help you."

XVII
Until Tomorrow

The ship landed on the palace roof, a medical racer designed to ferry people to hospitals. It came down in a roar of hot gases, blasting the pad with exhaust. Warning lamps strobed in the night, their patterns tuned to the palace defenses. The light caught on the surrounding peaks, a reminder that we were on an isolated roof in the mountains rather than an airfield at the starport.

Jaibriol and my father stood next to me, shading their eyes from the glare. We had taken shelter behind a low wall on the roof. As soon as the ship was down, I jogged toward it, running through a wind that whipped my jacket around my body.

The hatch swung open and light streamed out. A woman jumped onto the roof. She wore the uniform of an emergency medpilot, a white coverall with a triangular medical patch on her left shoulder. The hatch closed, cutting off the light as abruptly as it had appeared.

As I stopped in front of her, she bowed from the waist. "Primary Valdoria?"

"That's right," I said. "My father is resting."

"Has he had any more convulsions?"

I shook my head. "Nothing else. But he's not too steady."

"I have an air stretcher for him."

So far she had given the right answers. "What's your name?"

"Erin O'Neill."

It was the name Calloway had provided. The badge on her uniform said Lyra Merson. A good, solid Skolian name. We had a dossier on Merson covering her entire life. And it was false. Every last bit of it. This woman was Erin O'Neill from Earth. If I hadn't had a lot more to worry about, I would have been vexed that the Allieds had planted her so securely in the heart of Headquarters City.

"What were you told?" I asked.

"I'm to take two people offworld, to a location uploaded to my racer by President Calloway."

"Does anyone know your orders besides the President?"

She shook her head. "No one else."

I was betting my life and Jaibriol's on her guarantee of secrecy. "I'm one of the people you're taking."

"Yes, ma'am."

"President Calloway told me that under current Allied law, ship captains can perform marriages in space that are legally binding among your people. Is that true?"

She blinked. "Well—yes. It is."

"Good." Both Imperialate and Trader law recognized Allied marriages. That way, if Jaibriol and I ever had children, they would be our legal heirs. I had no idea what that would mean, but at least they wouldn't be illegitimate.

I spoke into the comm in my wrist guard. "We're ready."

The few lights on the roof went out, leaving darkness and the gusting wind. As O'Neill peered into the shadows, two figures appeared, just silhouettes in the dark. They approached slowly, the shorter figure limping the way my father did when he didn't have his cane. The two men became clearly visible as they reached us. O'Neill gaped at Jaibriol, who was still wearing his prison closed. Then, remembering herself, she closed her mouth and bowed from the waist, first to my father, then to Jaibriol.

I motioned at the racer. "We should get inside."

O'Neill stood aside to let my father climb into the darkened cabin. Jaibriol stepped up next, followed by O'Neill and then me. As soon as the airlock closed, lamps flooded the cabin with light.

The racer was designed for speed and economy. Equipment crammed its cabin: crates with survival-gear patches slapped on their sides; bundles of cloth, nervoplex, rubber, canvas, pipe; barrels ribbed with metal; smaller boxes, brown, grey, green, black, all with labels for mesh nodes or medical supplies. A laser carbine was secured against a bulkhead with its power pack. O'Neill had brought other weapons gear, too: a survival axe, a box of needle bombs more useful for excavation than as weapons, ISC standard issue tools. A bunk hung on the hull and medical webbing lay across it, ready to fasten around a patient.

Jaibriol sank onto the bunk, closing his eyes as he sagged against one of its supporting struts.

I sat next to him. "Are you all right?"

He looked at me. "Just tired."

My father came over and stood there frowning. Jaibriol flushed. Then he grasped one of the cables that held up the bunk and hauled himself back to his feet.

What was this? Another silent communication between Jaibriol and my father, like that business about children? I stood up, looking from one to the other.

My father regarded him sternly. "Are you prepared to take proper care of my daughter?"

I couldn't believe it. I was a Jagernaut Primary, for heaven's sake. "You should ask me if I'm prepared to take proper care of him."

My father glanced at me and gave a slight, wry smile. To Jaibriol, he said, "Maybe that wasn't the most appropriate question." He stood for a moment scratching his chin. "Aren't you a bit young for Sauscony?"

That was almost as bad. Why did he and my mother feel compelled to comment on the age of the men in my life?

Jaibriol regarded my father steadily. "I'll do everything I can to make her happy, sir."

"See that you do," my father said.

O'Neill stood by the co-pilot's seat staring at us with undisguised shock. When she saw me look at her, she let out a breath.

I turned to find my father watching at me. He spoke gently. "Goodbye, daughter."

I started to reach for him just as he raised his own arms. Then I was in his embrace, the same arms that had held me safe when I was a child. I hugged him, laying my head against his shoulder as I closed my eyes. "Good-bye."

"Be well," he whispered. "I love you."

A tear ran down my cheek. "And I you, Hoshpa." I drew back. "Will you tell Mother that I was sorry about what happened on Foreshires. That I told you how much I loved her and how much I wished—" I swallowed. "How much I wished it wasn't so hard for me to tell her."

He rubbed his palm over his face, smearing his tears. "I will."

O'Neill cleared her throat, a quiet sound, almost inaudible. When we looked at her, she said, "I'm sorry—but we should leave. The longer we stay, the more risk of our being discovered."

I made myself nod. My father and I walked to the airlock and stood by the door. When he touched the panel that opened the airlock, the cabin lights went out so no radiance spilled into the night. He let himself back onto the roof in darkness.

I lifted my hand. Good-bye.

He raised his arm to wave. Good-bye, Soshoni.

Then I closed the airlock.

As the lights came on, I went to the forward area of the ship. The racer didn't have a full cockpit, just a section with two seats for the pilot and co-pilot. Erin motioned me toward the pilot's seat. "I was told you can get through the cordon around the planet."

"I'm going to try." Whether I could do it or not was another question altogether.

She slid into the co-pilot's seat. Although no strain showed on her face, I felt her tension. She had drawn a truly odd assignment, risking her life to help people she was supposed to spy on. Jaibriol was sitting on the bunk, leaning against a bulkhead with his eyes closed.

"Jaibriol." My voice softened. "You'd better strap in."

He opened his eyes. Then he lowered himself onto the bunk and stretched out his legs, moving as if every contraction of his muscles hurt.

O'Neill touched a panel on the exoskeleton that lay open around my seat. "This controls the medweb." She pressed the panel, and a rustle came from behind us. Turning, I saw the web fastening around Jaibriol. A thread snaked to his arm, inserted into it—and his eyes snapped open. He grabbed the line and yanked it out of his body.

O'Neill spoke quickly. "It's just glucose fluid, Your Highness. According to the monitors, you're seriously dehydrated."

Jaibriol lay gripping the line, but after a moment, he exhaled and let it drop. It immediately snaked back to his arm and reattached. Although he stiffened, he let it stay. I clenched my teeth, hating whatever Kurj's interrogators or Kryx Quaelen had done to cause his reaction.

As I slid into the pilot's seat, its exoskeleton folded around me and psiphons snicked into my body.

Medline attending, the racer thought.

Linking into the Kyle-Mesh from Medline felt strained and overly formal. Blackstar, the EI on my Jag, would have boosted me into psiberspace immediately, but I had to walk Medline through the procedure, giving instructions at every junction. I entered the Mesh as a wavepacket cowled in black. The grid was alive with the cordon activity, its cords shining harshly, like rays of the too-bright Dieshan sun. Kurj's presence was everywhere, omnipresent. Inescapable? I hid in my cloak.

Virtual reality psiber-simulation, I thought. High orbit.

The grid vanished—and I was in space. Diesha hung before me like a turquoise and amber ball swathed in dirty cotton. The psi-sim used data gathered by the ship's sensors to create a "reality" so complete I felt as if I were here, far out from the planet, analyzing the cordon. It gave me a far better reading of the situation than the visual displays; better even than the mindscape of my Jag. Visual, mindscape, psi-sim: they were three different levels of sensor ability, each more effective than the previous, each more costly. A psi-sim drained its user's mental and physical resources exorbitantly fast, which made it impractical in combat. But to get us out of here, I needed every advantage. If we didn't escape—well, my condition wouldn't much matter then.

A blip appeared over the rim of Diesha. I concentrated and rushed toward it, the sim supplying data faster than an actual ship could safely travel this close to the planet. The blip resolved into an ISC battle cruiser, a ponderous giant big enough to swallow a thousand racers and have room for more. Weapons mountings covered its surface like craters. Its cannon maws alone were big enough to swallow a Magrail train. A host of smaller ships attended it, and docking bays opened like huge jaws ringed with the grotesque metal teeth of jutting equipment. The scene was eerily silent; the atmosphere up here was too thin to carry sound waves.

I moved closer until the cruiser filled my field of view; closer still and I could see every dent and pockmark. The hull curved above and below me like a cliff of metal. Closer yet, and I brushed its hull. I was actually feeling the inside of my exoskeleton, with Medline using its data on the cruiser to recreate the tactile sensations of the ship. But that gritty surface looked and felt authentic.

Backing away, I plummeted to the planet. The view changed with dizzying speed: a ball in space, a curved landscape, a flat one. I plunged through clouds, came out below, and continued dropping until mountains rose around me. No lights showed anyplace except in the peaks where the Imperial palace sparkled like a jewel. I "landed" on the roof of the palace near the flyer I had used to bring Jaibriol here. Medline, the medical racer, sat next to it on a landing pad. I passed through its hull into the cabin, where I saw myself in the pilot's seat with my eyes closed, my body encased in the exoskeleton. It felt bizarre, as if I were having an out-of-body experience. I shook my head—and the head of the pilot moved from side to side. My hair rustled, a noise I heard both with my ears and through the simulation.

"Ready to go?" I asked. It felt odd to speak; usually when I piloted a ship I was in a psilink, making verbal communication unnecessary.

"Ready." O'Neill's forehead creased as she watched me.

"Problem?" I asked.

"I've never seen a pilot make flight preparations with her eyes closed."

"I'm in a psi-sim."

"Can you actually see the cockpit?"

"Better than that." I concentrated on her and a translucent display appeared, glowing red. "You're sitting 48.32 centimeters away from me, turned at a 23 degree angle relative to a line drawn from your solar plexus to the holoscreen directly in front of you. A lock of hair came free of your braid and is hanging next your left eye."

"That's amazing." O'Neill tucked the hair behind her ear.

I took hold of the flystick, seeing it in the sim and feeling it with my hand. As I shoved the stick forward, I withdrew from the ship and arrowed back into the night. The racers's near-planet thrusters fired and exhaust billowed around me, white and hot. The roar of our takeoff vibrated in the landing pad. We rose for several meters and hung there, our thrust just balanced by gravity.

Sauscony . . .

I started. Jaibriol? He shouldn't have been in psiberspace with me. He had no interactive connection to the ship. Hell, he had no biomech web in his body that could link him up.

Can't dissociate from you. His thought felt tired.

Can you pull back any? With no preparation for this, his brain could end up fried when I boosted my interactions with the Mesh. Think of yourself as a program on Medline. Try to run in the background.

A sense of laughter lightened his exhaustion. I will be as quiet as a node-mouse. He created an image of the glove on an old style virtual reality setup. A tail appeared on the glove, then two fuzzy ears, two eyes, and a mouth. The animal ran under the VR apparatus.

I smiled. Then I thought, Medline, retrieve that flyer.

Our port thrusters fired, moving us over the flyer. Hot gases scorched the pad and shook the flyer, but its reinforced hull remained sound. With a grinding clank, Medline extended claws from its belly. They closed around the flyer like a hawk seizing its prey and drew it up against the racer, holding it firm in a cage of metal claws.

Flyer secured, Medline thought. However, the palace defense systems are preparing to fire on us.

What the hell? Show me.

Numerous red blips appeared throughout the mountains, indicating the installations that guarded the palace. Some were isolated gleams of red and others glowed in huge clusters, like fire. As I magnified one cluster, it resolved into a line of laser cannons swiveling toward us, the rumble of their turning a deep growl in the night.

I paged the EI dedicated to the palace security systems. Zos respond.

Here, Zos answered.

Let us leave, I thought.

I can't do that.

Why not?

It violates my programming.

For flaming sakes. I had programmed it. Verify my brain patterns. Then execute the command.

I know who you are. Land or I'll blow up your racer.

I couldn't believe it. How could Zos refuse my commands? I was its damned mother.

You programmed me to protect your family, Zos thought. Jaibriol Qox's escape endangers them. So I am preventing his escape.

That was the problem with the EI knowing me so well; it had figured out my intent. Look, if Jaibriol and I don't get out of here, a lot of people may die, including me. If I'm executed, it may kill my father. So quit messing around and let us go.

No answer.

Damn! What was the confounded computer doing? Zos, respond.

The rumbling of the canons ceased.

Zos?

You may leave.

I let out a breath. Erase all record of this exchange.

Done.

Thank you. I shifted my attention to the racer. Medline, show me the cordon.

Medline showed me the grid of gold lines in the sky. The intersections mark ships in the cordon.

The grid curved into a spherical surface enclosing Diesha. The pattern of squares was perfect, a tribute to the uncompromising order Kurj sought in the universe. Every intersection contained at least one red blip and some had so many they merged into a blaze. As I focused on one fiery blur, it resolved into the mammoth battle cruiser Maxar with its multitude of attendants. Medline flooded me with data, including intelligence reports only someone with my stratospheric clearance could access. But my knowledge of ISC was no help. It only emphasized the impossibility of escape. How would we get through? Those ships would shoot any craft that gave the slightest conceivable hint it was fleeing the cordon.

So do the inconceivable.

Medline, I thought. Invert.

Restate command.

Kick in the inversion engines and get us out of here.

That is impossible.

Never mind that. Just do it.

To invert, we must leave the planet and accelerate to relativistic speed. If we leave the planet, the cordon ships will destroy us.

I didn't say speed up. I just said invert.

To invert, we must speed up.

I had no idea what would happen if we tried to invert while we were at rest. Popular wisdom held that we couldn't complete the process and would cease to exist in a limbo between the real and imaginary universes. Since no one had ever returned from trying it, no one knew if that was true.

I've intercepted a message to command central, Medline thought. The ship waiting to escort us to the hospital wants to know why we're sitting here, holding the flyer.

We had run out of time. Medline, invert.

To invert, we must spee—

Forget that! Just invert, damn it. Now!

Engines engaged.

The twisting started.

As nausea swept over me, the stars and mountains blinked out of existence. No, the mountains disappeared, but the stars remained. They smeared across the sky like spots of paint in a black liquid. Then I realized the mountains were also still there, but smudged into the sky, black on black. We hadn't inverted; we were caught between universes.

I leaked back into the racer and saw myself in the pilot's seat, my hands clenched on its arms, my eyes shut. The sim linked me to reality, but I was barely holding onto it. If I lost that last link to the universe where we belonged, we would melt into this bizarre otherworld. But the sim had drained my resources. I couldn't hold it. The cabin rippled around us and began to fade.

Then Jaibriol moved. He flowed off the bunk like paint dissolving in rain. The intravenous thread slid out of his arm with a drawn-out sucking noise. He crossed the cabin in slow motion, his face a smeared patch above the darker smears of his clothes. His body blurred and ran in dribbles onto the deck. The cabin was twisting, the fore section going to starboard, the aft section going to port. As it contorted, O'Neill and I poured out of our seats, our bodies dripping over the softened exoskeletons. The front of Jaibriol's body ran to one side, the back to the other, spreading him out in the two directions. The cabin continued to twist, trying to close on itself like a Möbius strip.

As Jaibriol reached me, the front half of his body dribbled across the black runnels that were my arms. His hand melted onto the flystick and the flystick spilled forward, splashing over the controls. I felt the thrusters fire. Sort of. Acceleration pasted us into our seats, sloshing our bodies, and Jaibriol melted across my exoskeleton, seeping onto the deck like a surrealistic painter's nightmare.

I couldn't hold the psi-sim steady. I leaked out of the racer, passing through its hull as if it were a film. Only part of me slipped, but it was enough to see the nightmare outside. In this bizarre interstice between universes, the cordon had degenerated into a skyscape of oozing gold lines and red smears. Ships fired, but their missiles and beams pooling uselessly in space. Eerie vibrating noises echoed everywhere. The air slid past me like oil, smelling of exhaust.

We were moving into the cordon. Meedliiinnnne, I thought. Ploooot cooourssssss . . .

The words trickled away. I tried to create an image in my mind of an open space I could see in the deformed grid. Medline responded by heading for the opening. As we approached, the gold lines smeared out wider and wider, filling the hole. By the time we reached it, the opening was gone, but we dribbled past the gold smears like oil soaking through a sponge.

I scraped back along the ship and soaked through the hull, my identity recollecting in the cabin. Jaibriol was lying in a pool on the deck, his body smeared across its surface. Everything was dark. Dim. So dim.

Fading out . . .

Fading in . . .

Data dripped into my mind telling me we had come out of stasis. Medline had cleared the planet enough to fire the photon thrusters. The real part of our velocity was 60% of light speed . . .

. . .96%.

. . .99.999999%.

Our liquefying mass increased by a factor of 7000. The engine sucked in matter from a cosmic ray flux that extended through real and imaginary space, its density far greater than the tiny fraction we saw in the subluminal universe. The racer ate fuel like an insatiable behemoth, hurtling gods only knew where. For eighteen minutes, or maybe eighteen millennia, we poured through space, running on the rim of light speed, trying to invert—trying and failing.

Meeeeeeeddddliiii . . .subliiiight . . .

The cabin went black—

And the twisting stopped.

I gasped, shocked by my sudden solidity. My eyes snapped open. We were accelerating at more than one g, but we were solid. Normal. No, not quite normal. Bits of my uniform were embedded in the seat where Jaibriol had fallen across my arm, and I could see pieces mixed in with my skin too.

"Jaibriol!" My voice rasped. I smacked my palm against the exoskeleton and it unfolded, letting me twist around to see the cabin.

He lay in a heap, sliding along the deck. His legs were flat on the ground as if he were on his back, but his torso was twisted so that from the waist up he was lying on his side. One arm was caught behind him, pulling away from the rest of his body. It made him look distorted, broken in two.

I struggled out of the pilot's seat. As dizziness swooped over me, I slid down to the deck. Then I crawled to Jaibriol. Please don't let him be dead. I lifted his arm, the one behind him, and put it in front of his torso. With a groan, he rolled onto his back, his body relaxing into a normal position. As we slid along the deck, he stared at the bulkhead above him, his gaze unfocused.

I pulled myself up to lie alongside of him. "Can you see me?"

He squinted at my face. "Yes."

"Are you all right?"

"I think so."

"Primary Valdoria," Medline said. "We are using up a great deal of fuel."

"Stop accelerating," I said.

The hum of the engines changed, and Jaibriol and I stopped sliding. As he turned his head, the motion caused him to drift up from the deck.

A groan came from the co-pilot's seat. I pushed off the deck and floated to the cockpit, where my exoskeleton caught my body and pulled me down. O'Neill sat in her own seat, her face pale.

"We made it," she said.

"I hope so." I settled into the exoskeleton. The holomaps in front of my chair showed images of the region where we were traveling, along with graphs charting fuel consumption, trajectory, location, date—

I whistled. "We've jumped three months into the future."

Jaibriol floated over and grabbed the arm of my chair. "That can't be. We've only been traveling a few minutes."

"We never inverted," I said. "So we never compensated for the time dilation." It could work to our advantage, I realized. "They'll search for us in the wrong place. Or I should say the wrong time. They'll be looking for us three months ago."

"That means I haven't reported to President Calloway in three months," O'Neill said. "She must think we're dead."

"Let us hope they all think that," Jaibriol said.

We had lost three months of our lives. Three months had passed since my father gave our story: a desperate Jaibriol had managed to reached the palace and capture the flyer; he tried to adapt its engines for inversion; I and "Lyra Merson" grabbed him with the racer; the backlash of his improperly inverting engines caught us—and after that no one knew what had happened.

"Medline," I said. "Release the flyer."

The grind of opening claws vibrated through the deck. My holomaps showed the flyer riding under us, matching our velocity. I manipulated the claws until they nudged the small vessel, changing its velocity enough that it drifted in front of the racer.

"Blow it up," I told the racer.

The flyer exploded. Debris hurtled in all directions, some coming straight at us on the screens and deflecting away when it hit the protected hull. By the time anyone discovered the wreckage, it would be spread out over too much space for them determine that none of us had exploded with it.

And then it was done.

I leaned back and closed my eyes, overwhelmed by exhaustion as my adrenalin eased.

"Maybe I should take over," O'Neill said.

I managed to nod. While she took the controls, I released my exoskeleton and pulled out of it. Jaibriol and I floated over to the bunk. As we maneuvered onto it, the medweb slid around us both, securing our bodies. And finally we could relax, wrapped in each other's arms. Although I wanted to stay awake, we both slept, dozing and waking sporadically. When we inverted, my stomach rebelled, but this time the twisting lasted only an instant.

Some time later, I awoke to see O'Neill floating by the bunk.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"All right." My voice sounded raspy, but I felt steadier.

"I put the racer on autopilot," she said. "It will be a few hours, ship's time, before we reach our destination."

Jaibriol stirred. "Where are we going?"

O'Neill took hold of a strut and drew herself down so she was eye level with us. "A planet called Gamma IV."

"What constellation?" I asked. Gamma IV was an incomplete designation.

O'Neill only said, "No one knows it exists except us, President Calloway, and the robot scout that found it four standard days ago—" She paused. "Four days and three months ago. Calloway intercepted the report before anyone else saw it. By now, she will have erased that record."

So. O'Neill wasn't going to reveal its location even to us. "Are there people on the planet?" All these precautions would do no good if someone recognized us.

"No intelligent species," O'Neill said. "A lot of wildlife and some beautiful areas, like the mountains where I'll put you down. That's all we know. We have no surveys." She motioned at the cabin. "I brought as much gear as I could manage without drawing attention. I also got you a solar powered EI with a library. Other than that, you'll be on your own."

What an understatement. True, as a Jagernaut I had survival training. My enhanced speed and strength would help, as would Jaibriol's strapping good health and his intelligence. But it wouldn't be easy. I supposed that had a certain logic from Calloway's point of view. What better way to keep the Highton and Imperial Heirs out of trouble than to set us down in an uncharted wilderness where all our energy would go into staying alive?

O'Neill cleared her throat. "If you wish—I can perform the ceremony."

"Ceremony?" I asked.

"The marriage." She hesitated. "You asked for one . . .?"

I rolled over to face Jaibriol. "Want to marry me?"

He smiled and pushed up on his elbow. "All right."

With that vastly romantic proposal done, we went over to the cockpit and brought up the library files, looking for a ceremony. Medline had several, mostly from Skolian worlds. Then one from Earth caught my attention. It came from the Maya Indians. I noticed because it scrolled up with the image of a woman who reminded me of my grandmother, with her large, dark eyes and luxuriant braid of black hair hanging down her back. The only words we found for it were in a language called Tzotzil. Since we didn't want an AI translating during our wedding, O'Neill made up Skolian words, keeping the spirit of the ceremony.

We needed three candles, a ribbon, thirteen coins, and two rings. For candles, O'Neill dug out penlights from a locker. She found a long string we could use as a ribbon, and she had a handful of coins in her pocket. The rings gave us the most difficulty. We finally took two fittings off a brace on the bunk. We were supposed to kneel at an altar, but since we had neither the altar nor the necessary g-forces, we improvised by floating near the bunk.

O'Neill turned on the penlights and gave us each one, keeping the third for herself. She spoke gently. "May these lights keep your future well lit." Then she tied the ends of the string together and slipped the loop over our heads. "May this ribbon join your lives together as one." She counted out the coins. "May your souls remain safe within you." Handing them to Jaibriol, she said, "Tell her, 'I give these to you, wife.'"

Jaibriol pressed the coins into my hands. "I give these to you, wife." Softly, he added, "It's all I have and I'm afraid it's borrowed, but I give it with all my heart."

I lifted his hand and pressed his knuckles against my cheek, sending us floating into a strut of the bunk. "Then you've made me a rich woman."

O'Neill peered at her notes. "Actually, you say, 'I receive them, husband.' It's the first time you call each other husband and wife."

"I receive them, husband." I glanced at O'Neill. "Don't I give him anything?"

She studied her notes. "It doesn't look like it. You give the coins to whoever marries you."

That seemed rather redundant, given that they were hers to start with. But I offered them. "Thank you."

She smiled. "Keep them. For a memory." She pulled the rings out of her pocket, the motion bumping her against a brace on the bunk. Lifting Jaibriol's hand, she slid a ring onto his fourth finger. Then she handed him the second ring. "You may give it to your bride."

Jaibriol put it on my index finger, where it fit best. It felt odd; I rarely wore jewelry. But that was all right. I would get used to it.

"If I were a priest," O'Neill said. "I would read Mass now. But since I'm not . . ."

"We understand," I said.

"I guess that's it, then." She unhooked a node pad from her belt. "As Captain of this ship, I pronounce you married." She extended the pad toward me. "You both have to sign."

Jaibriol visibly tensed. "If a record exists, someone might find it."

"If we don't make this record, it's not legal," O'Neill said. "I'll give it only to President Calloway." She offered us the pad again. "Why get married if it doesn't mean anything?"

"It means something to us," Jaibriol said. "That's what matters."

"No. She's right." I smiled wanly. "That's how they used to end wars, right? Marry off the children of the opposing forces. And think of our children, if we have any. Illegitimacy will weaken their position. If something happens to us, that may mean a lot more than we can imagine now."

Jaibriol glanced at O'Neill. "Only President Calloway will see this document?"

She nodded. "Unless you ever have reason to ask her for it yourselves."

He let out a breath. "Very well."

So we both signed. And then we were married.

* * *

Jaibriol stood with me, both of us looking at the evening sky. Long after O'Neill's ship had dwindled to a speck and disappeared, we continued to stand there, as if by not moving we didn't have to acknowledge we were alone and cut off from the rest of humanity.

Finally Jaibriol sighed. He glanced at the entrance of a cave in the hill next to us. "We ought to set up some sort of defense." He motioned at the heavy forest. "In case anything is out there."

I nodded. "Yes. Of course."

But after we walked inside the cave, we just looked around. The feeble light from our hand-lamps revealing a rocky cavity not much bigger than the cabin of the racer. Crates, boxes, barrels, and bundles lay in piles, as well a neutrino transmitter. We had set up an electrified screen, but we otherwise hadn't done much with the supplies.

Jaibriol took a blanket from a pile. "Let's go outside. Just for a while."

The thought of escaping the dark cave appealed to me also. "All right." I slung the laser carbine over my shoulder and clipped on its power pack.

Outside, we reset up the screen to guard the cave entrance. Then we looked around. A forest of soft-needled trees surrounded us, thinning out to the west into a scorched clearing where the racer had landed. To the north the trees also thinned, opening into what looked like another clearing.

We went north, taking in the feel of the land, and came out onto the apex of a cliff. Peaks spread out as far as we could see, towering slopes that plunged down into valleys and sheered back into the sky, all carpeted by forest. Vertical cliffs showed here and there, their nude faces making patches of white in the otherwise unbroken green. Above the mountains, the sunset burned like red fire lapping against the low clouds. Straight above us the sky had darkened, letting stars wink here and there. In the east, the ragged wedge of a broken moon hung above the peaks.

"It's beautiful," Jaibriol said softly.

"Yes." Beautiful. Wild. Unknown.

After checking the area, we sat on the edge of the cliff with the blanket wrapped around us and the carbine resting on our knees. The wind whispered across our faces while shadows darkened the mountains. More stars appeared, one by one, then tens of them, then hundreds and thousands.

Jaibriol leaned his head against mine. "Home."

Home. It felt strange to say. We had lost so much; everything we knew, everyone we loved. And despite all that had happened, I knew Jaibriol loved his father. But in exchange for those losses, we had gained the hope that someday we, or perhaps our children, could make a difference in the unending war between our peoples. No guarantees existed, no promises, no certainties.

But the hope was there.

We sat together, warm under the blanket. Soon we would return to the cave to make love and sleep and gather our energy for tomorrow, and the tomorrows after that, as we learned to know each other, preparing not only to survive, but to heal for the future, for that day when we might leave here and resume our heritages.

For now, we were content to sit together and watch night unfold.

THE END

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Primary Inversion

Table of Contents

Part One: DELOS

I
Island Of Sanctuary
II
Tams Station
III
Psibernaut
IV
Lucifer's Legacy
V
Denials
VI
Blackstar Squad
VII
Aftermath

Part Two: FORESHIRES HOLD

VIII
A Time To Search
IX
A Time To Weep
X
A Time To Heal
XI
A Time To Speak
XII
A Time To Plant

Part Three: DIESHA

XIII
Fist Of The Web
XIV
Mind Of The Web
XV
Chains And Silk
XVI
Heart Of The Web
XVII
Until Tomorrow