The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (Saga of the Skolian Empire)

by Catherine Asaro

  Dehya frowned as their cars sped down the concourse. “Send a report to ISC.”

  They continued on, headed for Selei City, where a new session of the Assembly would soon open, gathering hundreds of leaders from all over Skolia in one place—including the First Councilor, Skolia’s elected leader, and the Ruby Pharaoh, its hereditary sovereign.

  Soz sat at the end of a robot arm with a terminus just big enough for her console, which formed a cup, curving under her feet and around her lower body. She had become so used to the psiphon prongs that clicked into her sockets, she barely noticed them. Transparent panels positioned themselves around her and holomaps rotated above them while the iridescent ripples of holograms shifted on their surface like rainbows on an oil slick.

  Today Soz was in the main body of the ship rather than on the bridge. From out in space, the cruiser resembled a tubular shell, but that “shell” was hundreds of meters thick, with many decks where crews lived and worked. Soz tended to think of bays in terms of the observation bubbles where a person could look out at the stars, or else medical bays, which she avoided. This bay was a cramped chamber, spherical in shape, with featureless walls. The robot arm held her in the center. Known as a telop bay, it provided an environment where a telop could more easily detach her attention from spacetime and submerge her mind into Kyle space.

  Sigma Pride respond, Soz thought.

  Attending. The thought came from one of many subshells created by the EI brain of the battle cruiser Roca’s Pride.

  Visor, Soz thought.

  The visor lowered and plunged her into darkness. A display of psicons formed like the icons that floated above mesh screens, except these were in her mind, created when her node accessed her brain. She concentrated on the icon of an old-fashioned horn, the type a town crier might have used to announce news.

  Communications, Soz thought.

  The horn grew until it filled her mindscape. Then it blinked out and left her in darkness.

  Soz scowled. Well, flat damn. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  Return psicon display, she thought. The icons reappeared as before, except the horn was pulsating red. Sigma, what Is wrong with my link to your communications systems?

  Sigma rumbled. The error appears to be in your spinal node.

  Soz directed a thought to her node. Why can’t you link to the comm systems of this ship?

  Her node’s “voice” was quiet compared to Sigma. Your wet-codes are incompatible.

  You mean my thoughts?

  Not thoughts. The commands encoded into the bioelectrodes in your neurons are incompatible with the commands Sigma expects you to send so that you can communicate with the ship.

  Soz didn’t like the sound of it. They have to be compatible. ISC designed Jagernaut biomech specifically for use with ISC systems such as this.

  Yes. However, your bioelectrodes have been altered.

  Soz went rigid. Altering her bioelectrodes required access to her brain. Do you know how it happened? Because I sure as blazes don’t.

  Checking. After a pause, it thought, the alteration took place during a communication you had with Diesha several days ago.

  You mean when I talked to Jazar?

  Yes.

  I don’t recall anything unusual.

  I recorded an energy fluctuation toward the end of the transmission.

  Now that Soz thought about it, she did recall Jazar mentioning an energy spike. A fluctuation that just “happened” to reprogram my bioelectrodes?

  The electrodes aren’t reprogrammed. Just disrupted. Why did it happen when I talked to Jazar?

  I don’t know.

  Did it affect any other Jagernauts onboard this cruiser?

  I don’t know. You must ask the ship.

  She redirected her thought. Sigma, what do you know about it?

  Nothing, the ship answered. I have no public records of other Jagernauts reporting such an effect.

  What about private records? Soz asked.

  Private records are private.

  Well, yes. All right. What is the procedure for dealing with alterations like those in any bioelectrodes?

  I have no established procedure.

  Interesting. If this was a known problem, medical would have a means of dealing with it, especially since so many systems on the ship required access to the Kyle web. We need to establish one. I can’t do my training if I can’t link to your comm systems.

  Checking. Then Sigma thought, It should be possible for one of my nodes to reprogram your bioelectrodes.

  That sounds straightforward.

  Yes. Shall I proceed?

  Is there any danger to me?

  It does not appear so.

  All right. Proceed.

  While Sigma worked, Soz pondered. If the problem was this easy to fix, the solution should have been readily available, assuming someone had reported the difficulty. Either it was classified for some reason or no one had experienced the effect.

  Reconfiguration of your bioelectrodes complete, Sigma thought. I am connecting to communications nodes.

  Does everything work?

  Yes. You are connected. Its “voice” took on a new layer of richness.

  Good. Now disconnect me.

  You haven’t completed your training session.

  I will. I want to ask you some private questions first, though.

  Disconnected. Sigma’s voice lost its extra layer.

  Sigma, does my spinal node have any differences compared to those of other people who have nodes on this ship?

  Yes.

  Soz waited. When it didn’t continue, she sighed. Sigma reminded her of the ever-literal Kurj. What are the differences?

  Your node has more memory.

  Soz thought of her first experiences with the node, in the hospital on Diesha. Because I’m a Ruby psion. So I have more neural structures it can utilize.

  Yes.

  Soz rubbed her temple, wondering what secrets hid within the ephemeral flashes of her neurons. Had her increased memory caused her biomech web to malfunction? Sigma, send a report about my biomech anomalies to Medical.

  Done.

  Good. Now disconnect your prongs from my body.

  You haven’t completed your training session.

  I will. Later. She wanted to study the record of her biomech problems without Sigma eavesdropping.

  Disconnected. Its response had a disapproving quality. For flaming sakes. A battle cruiser was scolding her. Well, they had named it after her mother. Even so. For Sigma’s benefit, she scowled at the monitors set around the bay.

  Then Soz directed a private thought to her own node. Do you remember when I cracked all these field training systems at DMA?

  I have full records of your infractions.

  Soz winced. Even her node was disapproving. She thought back to her unauthorized explorations at DMA. When I tampered with the security meds, it caused an energy surge in the system. I had to disguise it. Do you still have a record of that?

  Yes, I do. Shall I compare it with the spike that disrupted your bioelectrodes?

  Yes. She wondered if Jazar had played a trick on her. It would be out of character; he tended to go by the book, which was one reason she liked spending time with him. He moderated her urge to bend rules. It also made him a delectable target for her teasing. She could never be sure about Jazar, though. He had a streak of mischief. If he had perpetrated some prank on her, she would figure it out and reverse the process.

  Soz paused. How would he manage a trick through Kyle space? She doubted she could have done it, and she knew the meshes better than most cadets. He might have had help, but that would take someone relatively high in ISC security, hardly a person likely to abet such shenanigans.

  Soz rubbed her chin. Perhaps the problem originated here.

  I’ve finished my comparison, her node thought. The spike that scrambled your bioelectrodes is similar to the one you created when you cracked the DMA meshes. However, the two spikes hav
e different signatures.

  I don’t understand what you mean by signature.

  A waveform modulates signals in Kyle space. The envelope for the spike you created differed from the one that affected your talk with Jazar Orand. ISC signals have characteristic envelopes. I don’t recognize the one in your communication with Orand.

  Her unease was growing. Reconnect to Sigma. Send Security the record of the problem with my bioelectrodes, and include the analysis you just gave me.

  Connecting, her node thought.

  Sigma’s voice growled in her mind. Records forwarded.

  Good. Soz released a breath, trying to center herself. She wanted to pursue this anomaly herself, but she had a long shift ahead of her. She made herself return her focus to Sigma. You can commence my training session.

  Commenced, Sigma thought.

  Probably Security would recognize the signature. She sure as hell hoped so. Otherwise, someone had figured out how to sabotage Jagernauts.

  Roca was sleeping when the alarms went off. She sat up in bed, groggy, peering into the dim light. When she set her palm against the wall, the comm panel glowed blue.

  “What’s going on?” Roca asked.

  “This ship is being boarded,” her AI answered.

  “That’s impossible!” She climbed out of bed. Unused to the low gravity from the ship’s rotation, she stumbled and fell, her descent languid until she landed on her hands and knees. In standard gravity, she would have hurt her legs when she hit the deck, but now she hardly banged them.

  “Councilor,” the AI said. “Your bodyguards need to enter.”

  Roca swore under her breath. She yanked her nightgown over her breasts and pulled down the knee-length shift. Before she could do anything else to cover up, the door shimmered and vanished in a molecular airlock. She knew the airlock provided protection for her, but it flustered her to have one in her cabin so deep inside the starship. It highlighted how much ISC feared for her safety.

  The entrance framed two Jagernauts. As she sat up groggily, they strode inside, two warriors in black, a looming contrast to the Luminex walls. The man put his arm under Roca’s elbow and drew her to her feet. The other Jagernaut, a large woman with a braid of black hair, scanned the cabin with a monitor in her gauntlet. The ship’s alarm continued to blare.

  “Are you all right, Councilor?” the man asked.

  “Yes, fine.” Roca pushed her hair out of her face. “What’s going on?”

  “We dropped out of inversion for routine verification of our position and time,” he said. “We sent a Kyle message to HQ. We were almost immediately surrounded by ESComm ships.”

  Roca went cold. “We aren’t in their territory.”

  “Not even close,” he said grimly.

  Hell and damnation. Interstellar space was vast, limitless on human scales. The probability was infinitesimal that the Traders would just happen upon her ship. ESComm must have stolen intelligence about the route. But that would mean they had broken ISC security at its highest levels. She felt ill: first an Aristo had infiltrated Lyshriol, then ESComm infiltrated Diesha, now they intercepted her ship. Where would they hit next? The only major Imperialate center they hadn’t yet—

  “Gods, no!” Roca jerked away from her bodyguard and lunged toward the comm in the wall.

  The Jagernaut grabbed her with enhanced speed. “Councilor, you must come with us.”

  She struggled to pull out of his grip. “They’re going to hit Parthonia!”

  The female guard grasped Roca’s other arm. “We have to get you off this ship.”

  “Don’t you understand?” Roca resisted as they hauled her out of the cabin. “The Assembly is on Parthonia right now.”

  “Councilor, we can’t do anything for them,” the woman said. “Our responsibility is to get you to safety.”

  They pulled Roca down a corridor of the ship, and she had to run to keep up, steps long and high, flying. Her feet barely skimmed the floor and her nightgown whipped around her knees. They had more experience in this gravity, and she let them pull her along, sailing through the air in leaps that devoured distance. Their gauntlets glittered. At the edges of her mind, she caught whispers of their interaction with the ship’s EI.

  Suddenly they jolted to a stop, so abruptly that she ran into the woman. With a heave, they spun her around and took off in the opposite direction. She asked no questions; she couldn’t risk interrupting whatever communications they were receiving. Her upper arms ached where they were gripping her.

  Just as fast as they had turned, the Jagernauts stopped again, looking back the way they had come, then down the corridor ahead. The woman slapped her gauntlet and the bulkhead before them vanished. They shoved Roca forward and sailed through the opening into a tube crammed with repair bots and coils. Craning her head to look back, Roca saw the bulkhead solidify behind them.

  They followed the tube to a branching point and squeezed down a new tube, this one even more confined. Several times Roca hit her head on the overhead curve or caught her limbs on projections. The neck of her nightgown snagged a sharp edge and ripped. Airlocks on bulkheads opened before them and shimmered into place behind. These changeable corridors seemed to riddle the interior of the starliner. The Jagernauts made and remade them, apparently with commands from their internal nodes.

  Finally they stopped at the junction of two tubes, grabbing handholds to halt their motion, each with a hand gripped around one of Roca’s upper arms. Her momentum made her body swing forward, her feet flying out in front of her. As her bodyguards twisted around in the small space, the entrance of a new tube shimmered in the wall next to them. Gray smudges flickered in her side vision. Looking right and then left, she saw soldiers approaching from both directions.

  They wore ESComm uniforms.

  “Ah, Gods.” Roca grunted as the Jagernauts shoved her into a new tube that had just opened.

  “Run!” the female Jagernaut hissed. The ESComm officers were only a few meters away. The bulkhead shimmered into place behind Roca and cut her off from both her bodyguards and the invaders.

  Roca gulped in air as she pushed down the cramped tunnel. She prayed the Jagernauts survived. Then she thought of the hells they would suffer if ESComm took them prisoner, and she prayed they either escaped or died. She propelled herself along faster—

  ESComm soldiers stepped into view ahead.

  “No!” Roca tried to turn back. She didn’t have the facility of the Jagernauts in this gravity and her nightgown wound around her thighs, hampering her movements. In the seconds it took her to maneuver around, the soldiers caught up. One grabbed her from behind, clamping his arm around her waist and pulling her against him. She felt his arm through the flimsy cloth of her nightgown; his limb was metal embedded with conduits.

  Roca rammed her elbow into his stomach, causing them both to swing around. Instead of hitting flesh, her elbow jarred a hard surface. Body armor. She twisted in his grip and swung at his head, but her knuckles only glanced off his helmet. As he caught her fist, their struggle knocked them down the tube and their feet left the ground in the slight gravity. Her hip-length hair caught on projections and hindered her movements.

  Someone else grabbed her arm and pressed a syringe against her neck, delivering gods only knew what drug. Frantic, Roca fought harder. The hem of her nightgown caught on a strut and a strip of cloth ripped off. The ESComm soldier behind her hooked his leg around both of hers, keeping her in place with her back to his front. As they reeled into a bulkhead, she hit her head and spots danced in her vision.

  Roca’s vision was dimming. Whatever drug they had given her worked fast. One of the soldiers wrenched her arms behind her back and crossed them, one forearm on top the other. Pain shot through her muscles. As they bound her arms together, she kicked the soldier in front of her. They all lurched to the side, into a robot sweeper hooked in the wall. She was having trouble focusing and her motions felt sluggish.

  The soldier behind Roca yanked her around
to face him. She could see nothing of his head, only his silver helmet. He reached out, his motions seeming slowed to her drugged mind, and drew his fingertip along her lips. She tried to jerk back, but she could barely move. He wore a silver glove as part of a metal gauntlet. It probably had sensors that could feel her skin. The thought made her nauseous.

  Fog filled her mind. Someone behind her dragged down the shoulder of her nightgown. The tip of a syringe pressed her neck again. As her sight went dark, the soldier holding her from behind slid one hand across her chest and fondled her breast. Dimly she heard another man speak in Highton: Leave her alone. She isn’t ours.

  No, Roca thought. But she could no longer speak, and they would never hear the thought.

  Someone was tying her ankles. He jerked the bonds tight and she groaned as they cut her skin. Or she tried to groan. No sound came out. She thought they were moving, but she could no longer see. Her arms ached behind her back and her ankles throbbed. She felt the cavity in their minds, emptiness, threatening to swallow her. Her captors were anti-empaths. They had Aristo blood. When she suffered pain, they transcended …

  Mercifully, her mind faded into blackness.

  11

  Aristos

  Shannon noticed the distant rider when he saw a drifting cloud of bubbles in the plains. He was standing on top of the wall that surrounded Castle Dalvador, and his hands rested on cool bluestone at the low point of a crenellation. He watched the rider, knowing it was a woman, knowing she came to change his life, but he couldn’t let her, not yet, not until he understood the foreboding that plagued him.

  So he watched, in a trance.

  Sometime later he realized she was nearing the castle. He could wait here or go to meet her. He followed the walkway on top of the wall until it intersected a tower with a blue turreted roof. Submerged in trance, he opened the blue glasswood door and entered a chamber of polished bluestone, only stone, no furniture, nothing but a stone bench circling the wall. He went through it and down the spiral stairs, around and around, his soft boots silent. At the bottom, he walked out into the courtyard, his mind drifting, no definite thoughts, only impressions: the distant calls of stable hands working with lyrine; a solitary gold bubble floating over the wall; packed dirt under his feet.