I felt her sorrow. Yet another spark of grief in the flame of our devastation. “My deepest sympathies, Secondary.”
Jinn inclined her head to me, her mourning contained but not hidden in her thoughts. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Vazar spoke. “Jinn Opdaughter served with courage and honor. She was part of the ISC raid that captured Jaibriol the Second.”
I gazed across the bay to the shuttle. A similar ship had carried Soz and Jaibriol II away from the Trader capital, along with their Jagernaut team—until it exploded. Had Soz brought two empires to their knees in the most brutal war the human race had ever known, all to rescue the father of her children—and then died after she finally achieved her goal?
Then again, Jaibriol and Soz had “died” once before.
“Vaz.” I considered her. “Were the remains of the shuttle found?”
“They found pieces of everything. Even the engines.”
Hmm. Shuttle explosions could be faked. It seemed unlikely that such a deception would succeed, but this was Soz. Saints only knew what she could come up with. If she and Jaibriol wanted a life together, they had little choice but to go into exile. But as much as I wanted to believe she had survived, I didn’t sense her in the Triad. Eldrinson was there. We had tenuous link through whatever remained of psiberspace. But no Soz.
Jon Casestar was coming toward us. He stopped next to Vazar. “Are your preparations complete, Primary?”
“Just about,” Vazar said. “We’re checking the Pharaoh’s cyberlock.”
I blinked, startled. They were working on the cyberlock in my brain? I hadn’t noticed.
My thought must have been more directed than usual, enough to reach Vazar. Turning to me, she said, “That’s because we’re just running checks.”
Jon gave her an odd look. In the context of his comment, hers didn’t make much sense. Jinn Opsister glanced from Vazar to me. As a Jagernaut she had to be a psion, but she had neither Vazar’s strength nor family connection with me. I could tell she hadn’t caught anything from my mind.
Telepaths didn’t usually respond out loud to another telepath’s thought when people were with them who couldn’t have heard that thought. I didn’t think Vazar had offended anyone, but that rule of etiquette gave me a way to distract her. I didn’t want her to notice I was guarding my mind more than usual. Although it was unlikely she could pick up anything as well barricaded as my suspicions about Soz and the rest, I could take no chances.
Vaz. I focused my thought on her. Let’s not do that.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.
Jon was speaking to Opsister. “How are you configuring the cyberlock?”
She showed him her palmtop. “I’m calibrating its field to surround the Pharaoh in two layers. The inner layer will be set on high and the outer on low.”
Disconcerted, I looked down at myself. I saw only my blue jumpsuit. If the cyberlock had been active, a faint rainbow glimmer would have overlaid my body like a second skin. On its low setting, the cyberlock field made anyone who penetrated it dizzy. On high, it fatally disrupted the neural structure of the brain. It didn’t affect me because as part of my brain, it knew to protect me. Even on high, it only gave me a mild vertigo, but I could identify its setting by minute differences in that sensation. Right now I felt nothing. Although that was fine with me, I knew Jon wouldn’t like it.
Vax, the cyberlock isn’t working.
It should be. She spoke to Jinn. “Secondary Opsister, activate the lock.”
Jinn studied her palmtop. “According to this, it is activated. But it’s not responding normally.”
Jon Casestar frowned at me. “Pharaoh Dyhianna, if we have a problem here, I can’t send you down to the planet,”
Damn. “I don’t need the cyberlock,” I assured him. “I’m not in danger.”
“You can’t know that for certain.”
“Close to certain. I calculated it.”
He shook his head. “I still can’t risk it.”
“I’ve been to Delos before. Several times, for diplomatic summits.”
“That was during peacetime.”
“We’ve never had peacetime.” My voice had an edge of bitterness I hadn’t realized I felt so acutely. “We’ve been at war in some form or another since day one of the Skolian Imperialate.”
Jon cracked his knuckles, which made me think he wasn’t so sure after all. To Jinn, he said, “Any improvement with the cyberlock?”
She traced her finger over the film-thin screen of her palmtop, her forehead creased with concentration. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“Your cyberlock is—well, incomplete.”
Jon shot me a startled glance. “Removing the cyberlock would damage your brain, wouldn’t it?”
“A lot.” Quickly I added, “And I’m fine. My brain feels great”
Vaz snorted. Your brain is fried. Otherwise yon wouldn’t insist on going down to that blasted planet.
Sometimes I could do without telepathy. Stop treating me as if I’m helpless.
You are.
If that were true, I wouldn’t have survived Opalite.
All right, yes, that’s true. But damn it, Dehy a, yon look breakable as all hell.
LOOKS CAN DECEIVE.
“Could your palmtop be malfunctioning?” Jon asked Jinn Opsister.
“I don’t think so.” She flicked her finger through another holo, then studied the result. “I’ve triple-checked it.”
“How is my cyberlock incomplete?” I asked her.
“I’m not sure, ma-’am.” She looked up at me with puzzlement. “It seems to have lost some of the links it makes with your brain.”
I rubbed my chin. “It probably hasn’t fully transformed back here from Kyle space. The neural threads a cyberlock extends into the brain are only a few molecules thick, so even if only one or two particles are affected, that could disrupt the lock.”
Jon had The Look again, the one that made his face seem as if it were cut from granite. “Then I can’t approve your leaving the ship.”
Exasperated, I said, “I’ve gone down-planet in touchier situations. During the Carmichael Summit, we met here with Aristos and Allieds both. You didn’t protest then. And now we have more ships.” Answering his unspoken protest, I softened my voice. “Jon, I won’t disappear again.”
He responded quietly. “It would be an unmitigated disaster for us to have found you, only to have the Allieds take you prisoner. We’ve lost too much, Your Highness. I won’t be responsible for your loss as well.”
“You won’t be.” I tried my best to look safe and reassuring.
“Stay here. We can send a representative for you.”
I wished I could make him see. “As a Rhon, I can pick up things even your best people can’t detect.”
He studied my face. “Very well. I will accompany you.”
I had a taste then of what Jon felt when I insisted on doing things he considered too risky. “The two of us shouldn’t go together. If anything happened, we would both be lost.”
He snorted. “So. You do acknowledge a danger exists.”
“No. I just don’t see any use in the two of us going together.”
He wasn’t buying it. “Why not, if it’s safe?”
“You didn’t come down with the diplomats during the summit.”
“That was then. This is now.”
“Jon, please. Trust my intuition.”
I expected him to put me off again. But after a pause, he said, “It is true that your predictions, as puzzling as they often first appear, almost always make sense. In hindsight. But they’re never exact. Nor can we replicate them.” He shifted his weight, watching me with concern. “I deal in concrete facts. This is too uncertain. I don’t like it.”
“I will be all right.” I willed him to believe that.
“You really think Kelricson Valdoria is down there?”
“Yes.
I have to go down.”
For a long moment he stood thinking. Finally he exhaled a long breath. “Gods help me if I’m wrong. I’m going to trust your instincts, Pharaoh Dyhianna.” He fixed Vazar with piercing gaze. “Make sure she doesn’t get into trouble.”
“That I will, Admiral.” To me, she thought, Even if I have to throw you over my shoulder and haul you out off there. She made an image in her mind: me being pursued by slavering Aristo monstrosities; me trying to argue math with them, explaining how my calculations showed they couldn’t catch me; them grabbing me with barbaric cackles of glee; Vazar appearing in a flash of light; Vazar hefting me over her shoulder and running like the wind.
I smiled. I promise I won’t argue with Traders.
Jon spoke into his wrist comm. “J-team, Pharaoh Dyhianna is ready to leave.”
The Allieds invited us to their embassy in the city of New Athens. Accompanied by ten Jagernauts, with Vazar at my side, I met Colonel Yamada in the spacious lobby of the embassy. Columns bordered the area, all dark pink marble veined with gold. Pink and white tiles covered the floor in diamond mosaics, also veined with gold threads. A groined ceiling arched far above our heads, framing airy spaces, and a large chandelier of rose-hued crystals glittered in its center. It was beautiful, but also cold and formal.
Our footsteps echoed in the lobby. Yamada and his group waited under the chandelier. The colonel was a stocky man with a self-confident presence. His hair had turned gray, but his wide face had almost no lines. So far he had showed himself as skilled, sharp, and savvy; in other words, he wouldn’t easily give up information. An Allied dignitary stood with him, Michella Monquou, the Delos Ambassador to Skolia, one of Earth’s most respected diplomats.
Yamada had also brought his aid, Lieutenant Jennifer Mason, and ten soldiers. Unlike my retinue, however, his carried no weapons. Although Skolians tended to be more bellicose than Earth’s natural-born children, I suspected their discretion now came from enlightened self-interest: we were the occupying force, with far more firepower than they could claim.
Our two groups met with formal nods, a Skolian custom, and with handshakes, an Allied custom. Jon Casestar had identified me as a diplomat, and Yamada treated me as an ambassador. Despite their obvious tension, they didn’t seem hostile. I felt unease from their group rather than anger.
After various formalities, Yamada ushered us into a conference room paneled in gold. Swivel chairs of smart-leather surrounded a long, oval table made from a polished red wood. I paused at its head, watching the soldiers and diplomats assemble. Yamada stopped midway between the two ends of the table. The most effective place was actually where he stood rather than my position, but it made no difference. I didn’t intend to be here long.
I felt now what Jon had said he suspected; the Allieds were deceiving us. Although the colonel’s face remained impassive, his body language showed miniscule, but telling, changes—the tightened jaw and tense shoulders, his tight grip on the back of a chair.
I took a chance and made a guess. “Colonel, we would like to see the Skolian man you have in custody.”
His face became even more guarded, and I knew my words had hit the target. Yamada raked his gaze over the Jagernauts arrayed around me. He had to know that sensors within their uniforms and bodies could pick up the slightest variation in fields within and around the embassy. Using wireless links, they had already deactivated many security systems here. The embassy had monitors, not as good as ours but good enough to know we had neutralized their security.
Yamada spoke as if he were guarding each word. “We don’t even know the man’s name, Ms. Selei. He refuses to identify himself.”
So they did have someone! “I can probably identify him.” At least, I could if he was who I believed.
Yamada’s grip on the chair tightened, making his tendons stand out. “He may be a member of a noble House. He has an Iotic accent.”
No wonder Yamada was so tense, if he had an idea about the importance of his guest. I doubted he had guessed the full extent of it, though. “I will know, when I meet him.”
His unease seeped past his mental barriers. He had no way to evaluate whether or not it would be wise to give up their guest to us, but he had no grounds to refuse and plenty of reason to acquiesce. Ten of those reasons had come with me, armed and silent, and another few thousand orbited Delos.
Just when his pause became long enough to grow awkward, he extended his arm toward the door as if offering an invitation. “I will take you to him.”
The muscles in my shoulders loosened. “Thank you”
We followed corridors wide enough for six people to walk abreast. The air here felt refined, as if we breathed on a high mountain. The marble walls alternated with floor-to-ceiling holo-panels that showed mountains and lakes on Earth. Their beauty stirred a response deep within me, an instinctual longing blended with sorrow. My people had lost our home world six millennia ago, yet still I responded to those images. But we couldn’t return, not now, perhaps never. Our lost home was forbidden to us by the hostilities that had sundered the human cultures spread across the stars.
Yamada and I walked together, with Vazar to my right and Ambassador Monquou to Yamada’s left. Jagernauts and soldiers surrounded us on all sides.
“Our guest may refuse to speak with you,” Monquou told me. “He barely says a word, and he went berserk when our doctor tried to examine him.”
“A doctor?” I stiffened. “Why? Is he hurt?”
Yamada answered. “He’s been a Trader slave, a provider we think.”
Provider. The air no longer felt warm, or maybe I felt the chill inside. If the Traders had captured Kelric all those years ago instead of killing him, they would almost certainly have made him one of the psions they tortured to reach their so-called “exalted” transcendence. Had he endured that for eighteen years? No wonder he wouldn’t talk to anyone. I would be surprised if he was still sane.
And yet… when he had linked to me in Kyle space, if that truly had been him, his thoughts had resonated with strength. It hadn’t been the mind of someone who had spent nearly two decades as a provider.
I considered Yamada. “How did you get this man, if he was a Trader?”
The colonel spoke carefully. “It was an exchange.”
“Of prisoners?” The Traders must not have realized Kelric’s true identity; otherwise, they would never have given him up.
“Not exactly.” Sweat beaded his forehead. “One of our people traded himself for the Skolian man.”
Unease stirred within me. “Who?”
“A boy. A volunteer with the Dawn Corps. They’re a humanitarian group that helps war refugees find their families and return home or relocate.”
I stopped in the middle of the hall, my unease building. “Why would the Aristos take him in exchange for a noble-born Skolian provider?”
Yamada had also halted, and everyone else as well, leaving the colonel and me surrounded by soldiers. “We don’t know why,” he said.
“Who is this boy?” Please. I thought. Let me be wrong.
Then Yamada spoke my nightmare. “His name is Jay Rockworth.”
I felt as if the ground dropped beneath us. “No.” No.
Vazar was watching my face. “You know him?”
“Not at all.” I felt ill. Unable to say more, I went to a marble bench by the wall. I sat down, then put my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. Somewhere in the distance a cleaning droid whirred.
Why had Jay done it? He might be Rhon. He would be insane to go to the Traders. Or did he thirst for the power of the Carnelian Throne? As much as I had hoped to find Kelric alive, now dismay filled me. The universe was forever playing a game with us: you can’t have too much—if life works well in one way, it must suffer in another Kelric’s miraculous return came at a devastating price.
But this still felt wrong. How had this boy known the Traders had Kelric when ISC had never been able to discover he still lived?
Vazar sat next to me. “What is it?”
I lifted my head. The others had gathered around us, several paces away, watching and waiting. I felt heavy, like lead. I answered in a low voice. “Don’t ask, Vaz. Not yet.” I needed to know more before I revealed anything, lest I cause more damage than had already been done.
Yamada was watching me with close scrutiny. “Are you all right?”
Rising to my feet, I said. “Yes. I will be fine.” I wished it were true.
We continued onward, down wide marble halls. Yamada and Monquou asked questions, trying to understand my reaction. I evaded their inquiries or simply remained silent. I could tell they recognized my Iotic accent. Our noble Houses resembled royal families in countries on Earth, their positions primarily ceremonial and symbolic. However, the Ruby Dynasty and House of Majda still wielded power.
Yamada wondered if I had a link to that power, but he had no idea about the true nature of that connection. Yet. He and his people were sharp; I doubted we could hold them off forever. But my drive to come here had overridden even my preference to remain anonymous.
We turned into a smaller, more private hall. The colonel stopped at a polished wooden door with elegant friezes bordering its frame. I tried to remember what Kelric looked like, but I came up with only a vague image, an unusually tall, well-built man with genetically altered coloring, all metallic gold—his skin, his hair, even his eyes.
As Yamada opened the door, both anticipation and trepidation washed through me. Even knowing they had sent word that we were coming, I still feared we would find an empty room.
Several soldiers and Jagernauts entered, followed by Yamada and Monquou. I went next, with Vazar at my side, and the rest of our retinues came after. We entered a foyer with white walls and abstract holo-art that swirled with pastel color. Beyond the foyer, we followed a white hallway like dark motes in a tunnel of light. The ivory carpet muffled our footfalls, until I felt as if I could almost hear my own heartbeat.
The hall let us out into a spacious living room with white walls and more abstract holo-art. I had an impression of black furniture and glass tables, but that wasn’t what riveted my attention.
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