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

by Catherine Asaro

  “They didn’t. They just damaged it enough to leave it undefended.”

  “And the nanomeds?”

  “They rewrote parts of the biomech. Corrupted the system.”

  Soz found it hard to believe. “How could ESComm design such effective meds against us? They would have to know the structure and coding of our biomech. Surely our security can’t be that bad. Even if it was, they didn’t have access to our Jagernauts.”

  Kurj’s inner eyelids came down and his eyes became an unbroken expanse of gold.

  Soz scowled at him. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Hide behind your eyelids when you get uncomfortable.”

  A comer of his mouth quirked up. He raised his inner lids and let her see his eyes. “Happy?”

  “What is it you don’t want to tell me? Surely I have a need to know. I was one of the damn Jagernauts affected.”

  It was a moment before he responded. But he did answer. “The Ruby Dynasty spread the infection.”

  Soz was certain she had misheard. “Say again?”

  “We carried it. The meds targeted our DNA.” He rubbed his eyes, then dropped his hand onto the arm of his chair. “Vitarex infected everyone in his camp. He knew it would spread. Shannon must have picked it up there. He infected your family on Lyshriol. Mother infected me, Eldrin, and Dehya. You and Althor probably got it from Eldrin when he visited Diesha last year. You two took it into DMA. I spread it to my officers. Dehya and Roca carried it into the Assembly. Among the group of us, we exposed just about every major government and military institution in the Imperialate.”

  She stared at him. “That’s nuts.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “How could ESComm know how to infect the Ruby Dynasty?”

  “They have our DNA from Grandmother.”

  “It’s diluted by two generations.”

  Kurj shrugged. “We carry one fourth of her genes. Mother and Dehya carry half.” He sounded as if he were tiring. “Anyone can catch the virus. In dormant form, it hides in a sheath of programmable matter. It activates when it hits its target DNA.”

  “Ours.”

  “Yes.”

  The idea was maliciously clever. The traits of a psion arose from Kyle genes and manifested only if someone received a pair of every one of the genes, one from each parent. Most psions had only a few paired, but the Rhon had them all. Their DNA was unique.

  “So no matter how many people carried the virus,” she said, “it didn’t activate until it reached us.”

  “Yes. Or until an ESComm signal triggered it.”

  “That blasted energy spike!” Soz hit the arm of her chair with her fist. “ESComm had two signals, right? The first weakened our biomech defenses, and the second activated the virus. Individually, the signals couldn’t do much, but the first made it possible for the second to work. The second activated the nanomeds. Once they were loose, they wreaked havoc.”

  “That about sums it up,” Kurj said. “Mother helped us figure out how the signals penetrated our defenses.”

  The last time Soz had seen their mother, Roca had been barely able to get out of bed. “How?”

  Kurj picked up a holosheet from the table by his chair and handed it to her. “While she was on Raziquon’s ship, her node infiltrated its systems.”

  Soz studied the sheet. Apparently an ESComm ship would drop into Skolian space, send the signal, and invert out in seconds.

  She looked up at Kurj. “We should have detected the ships.”

  “For normal spacecraft, yes. These were shrouded.”

  “All ships have shrouds. It doesn’t make them invisible.” She waved the holosheet. “If ESComm racers were popping in and out of our space, we should have picked them up from their exhaust or from spacetime ripples when they rotated through complex space.”

  He smiled dryly. “You’ve read your security manuals.”

  Soz grimaced. “Thrilling reading.”

  To her surprise, he laughed. “They’re boring as all hell.”

  “Well, yes. But I wasn’t going to tell the Imperator that.”

  He motioned at the sheet she held. “ESComm has a new shroud. It uses programmable matter similar to the material that changes the opacity of a one-way mirror, like in Althor’s hospital room. But they’ve taken it much further.”

  Soz cycled through several menus on the holosheet and brought up the entry on the programmable matter. It described quantum dots, also called McCarthy matter, tiny sandwiches of superconducting p-n-p junctions. Applying a potential to the dots created a quantum wavefunction similar to that for the electrons in an atom. However, the dot contained no electrons. It was a simulated atom. Tuning the field simulated different atoms, including ones that corresponded to no known element. Fake matter.

  The racers altered their hulls when they dropped into Skolian space. They simulated matter that matched no natural material. With careful tuning, they could evade detection, at least for a second or two.

  “We can use this technology,” Soz said.

  “We’ve started work on it.” He leaned his head against the tall back of his chair. “We checked Vitarex’s camp on Lyshriol. Knowing what to look for, we found several programmable shrouds. They were keyed to his biomech, so they deactivated when he died. That’s what made them hard to find. He even had programmable matter designed into his skin.”

  “So ISC didn’t detect him.” It sounded horrific to Soz. What if something had gone wrong and his body simulated the wrong stuff?

  “He also had more conventional shrouds with extensive reach,” Kurj said. “It’s why no one could find Shannon. The shrouds hid him.”

  Soz considered that. Had they found Shannon, he wouldn’t have killed Vitarex, which meant ISC might have known this sooner. But Shannon wouldn’t have rescued their father. Could they have found the Bard in time to save his life? They would never know, just as Soz would never know if she had made the best choice when she withdrew her support from Kurj’s forces. It would always haunt her. It also made her think that she should be nicer to her brothers, let them know she liked them, that indeed, she loved them. One never knew when she might not have them to growl at anymore.

  She didn’t know how to start, though, so she just said, “I don’t see how Vitarex got into Lyshriol. Regardless of how well he disguised his matter, it’s still matter. ISC should have detected him.”

  “He came in on one of our own ships.”

  “An Aristo?” She refrained from questioning his sanity. He was her CO, after all, not to mention dictator of the universe, if one listened to the more melodramatic broadcasts.

  Kurj smiled. “You should see your face. And yes, it is incredible.”

  “I can’t imagine any technology that would allow an Aristo to ride an ISC ship to Lyshriol.” Gods. What a macabre thought.

  “I’m afraid it involved a much older method. He was a spy.” Kurj pushed his hand over his short hair. “ESComm has been planning this mission for decades, ever since your mother married your father. They understood what it meant, two Rhon psions forming a union. Rhon children. Heirs for the Dyad. It was too much of a threat.”

  “They trained him for twenty years?” How many other agents were hiding among her people, aimed like a spear to strike her family?

  “Longer,” Kurj said. “He trained from birth to pass as both Skolian and Rillian. They built his cover as an impoverished youth from Sandstorm. He enlisted in our army and worked his way through the ranks.” His fist clenched on the arm of his chair. “Finally he won the posting he had sought for decades. Lyshriol.”

  “Didn’t ISC notice he disappeared?”

  “Supposedly he died. Incinerated in a flash fire accident.”

  “Then how did he plan on leaving Lyshriol?”

  “We think it was a suicide mission.”

  “That isn’t what he told Father.”

  Kurj exhaled. “Raziquon may have believed he could go home. Maybe ESComm cl
aimed they could extract him. We don’t think they could have, especially if he tried to take any of your family.”

  It chilled Soz. “There could be more like him.”

  “Then we will find them.”

  “We should put ISC agents into ESComm.”

  His eyes glinted. “So we should.”

  She recognized his look; it meant ISC already had such agents. “What about the Ruby Palace? The nanobots that turned the place off and contaminated your kava couldn’t have been the ones that infected the rest of us.”

  “They were, actually,” he said. “When the meds interacted with my DNA, their sheaths dissolved and they activated, attacking security meshes, disabling systems, and releasing their poison.”

  It still didn’t make sense. “The rest of us were fine. If it was supposed to react with our DNA, why would it affect only you?”

  He gave her a rueful smile. “It’s all that glitter.”

  She doubted he meant glamour, given the lack most of them had in that department. Her family might seem glitzy to the public, but most of them preferred a quiet night by the hearth to the starjet lifestyle of celebrities. “What glitter?”

  “On Lyshriol,” Kurj said. “It’s everywhere. The dust it creates is mostly invisible, but it saturates the biosphere.”

  “Oh. You mean the stuff that turns the water blue.”

  He nodded. “It’s in everything: air, plants, clouds, lakes, rivers. The Lyshrioli have carried those meds for thousands of years. Your father passed them to your mother through, ah—” He cleared his throat.

  Soz’s face heated. “I get the idea.”

  “She gave them to you and your siblings in the womb. Eldrin gave them to Dehya.” He shrugged. “They not only neutralize the glitter, they also neutralize the ESComm species. It kept the invasion meds from fully activating in your bodies.”

  Good gods. “Well, I’ll take a ride on Rillia’s arrow.”

  He laughed. “Whose?”

  “Rillia. He shot the Lyshriol moons into the sky.” Another thought came to her. “Eldrin got sick from the kava you and he drank.”

  “That’s because the meds had already activated in my body. From me, they got into the palace. They’re vicious little things. They spread everywhere. His kava had the toxic version.”

  “But not toxic to him.”

  “He didn’t drink much and he had his blue dye meds.” Kurj’s voice was slowing. “In any case, we’re developing a counter series, like an antidote.”

  “Well, that’s good to know.” Soz watched him with concern. “You sound tired.”

  “Maybe I do need to rest.” He let out a breath. “It’s been a long night.”

  She spoke quietly. “But we’re coming out of it now.”

  Epilogues

  An ISC racer returned Eldrin to his home on the Orbiter. Over the years, he had arrived in this dock many times, back from travels—sometimes relieved, other times tired, most often tense after the Imperial Court, which consisted of nobles who thought him inferior and Assembly delegates who never much liked the aristocracy. Today was different. He had never been so glad to come home. Two reasons waited for him.

  As Eldrin left his ship, he saw those reasons high on a metal-mesh platform that overhung the bay. They were standing at its rail, two raven-haired figures peering down at the main airlock of the ship rather than the smaller one where he had disembarked. His pleasure at seeing them hit him with an intensity that made his eyes fill, which would have been embarrassing in front of his temporary bodyguards, except he managed to hold back the tears.

  Eldrin and his Abaj walked to a lift that would carry him up to the platform. Taquinil grabbed his mother’s arm and pointed excitedly toward Eldrin. As Dehya turned, her face lit with a smile. They both waved and Eldrin lifted his hand.

  He felt as if he had gained new senses. The bustle of crews, the corrugated deck, the tang of machinery and oil—it was all so vivid. Before, lost in his drugged euphoria, he hadn’t realized how much it blunted his perception of the world. Now he saw its sharp, intense beauty. Never again would he lose that in a haze of alcohol or “aids” he thought he needed to deal with life. What he had to lose—Dehya and Taquinil—was too precious to risk.

  For the past seven years, he had struggled with the conflicts of a life he had thought demanded more than he knew how to give. Perhaps too much had been asked of him at too young an age and he had made mistakes, but he was done with dwelling on his past. It was time to become the man that his family, his heredity, and his sense of self asked of him.

  As he stepped onto the lift with his bodyguards, the captain glanced at him and smiled. It startled Eldrin. The Abaj were ciphers, never talking, always alert in their deadly, augmented efficiency. The smile was at odds with the captain’s severe face and long warrior’s queue.

  “It is good to be back,” the Abaj said, his voice a deep counterpoint to the creaks, clanks, and hisses of the bay.

  “Yes. It is.” Eldrin hesitated. “I was wondering—”

  “Sire?” The Abaj closed the bar on the lift. He touched a panel on the rail and the lift rose up from the deck.

  “I heard that my bodyguards from Selei City have recovered,” Eldrin said. “I wish them commended for their efforts.” He wanted there to be no question that they had acted with honor.

  “I can inform the proper authority,” the captain said. “They will contact your AI secretary.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  The lift reached the platform where Dehya and Taquinil waited. As Eldrin stepped onto the metal mesh, Taquinil ran over and flung his arms around his father. Eldrin held him close, bending his head. A hand touched his shoulder. He lifted his head to meet Dehya’s gaze, her eyes a deep green overlaid by a translucent film of gold and rose, sunrise colors, luminous with tears. He pulled her into the curve of his arm, and held his wife and his son.

  Taquinil spoke beside him. “I’m glad you’re home, Hoshpa.”

  “I also,” Dehya murmured. “Dryni—the medical report—gods, phorine—”

  “I’m all right,” he whispered.

  “The doctors don’t know how you survived.”

  “It’s over.” It wasn’t true; it would never be over. He would be an addict even if he never touched phorine or alcohol again. He had no illusions about the difficulties he faced in readjusting without them. But he was home, finally home. Moisture overflowed his eyes despite his determination not to cry in front of the Abaj. Except somehow it was all right.

  He held his family, reunited.

  In the highest reaches of the Blue Dale Mountains, in a hidden dell overhung by stained-glass trees, a waterfall sparkled, catching the last rays of fading sunlight. Its muted roar muffled other sounds, and the fragrance of high-peak bubbles scented the air, clear and faintly sweet. Shannon and Varielle stood facing each other on a ledge behind the falls. A great sheet of water cascaded down from a cliff above and poured into the pool below.

  Shannon hinged his hand around her cheek. She turned her head and pressed her lips into his palm. Then she drew him close and he finally embraced her, what he had longed to do since they first met. They held each other, her arms around his waist, his cheek against the top of her head. Her small size made him feel large. He might be the slightest of the Ruby princes, but among the Archers he was tall and strong. With Varielle, he could be anything.

  She lifted her head, and he brushed her lips with his. As he deepened the kiss, spray from the waterfall wafted across them, warmed by underground springs. They undressed slowly, shy with each other. Untutored but unafraid, they explored, their hands sliding on the curves and planes of their bodies.

  Slowly they moved closer to the waterfall. They paused at the sheet of water, and mist sifted over them, thinned to a veil with specks of glitter. Shannon put his hand in the waterfall and huge, blue drops sprayed over it. Then they dove through the curtain of water, pounded by its force, and sliced into the pool below. They plunged in deep,
then came up and broke the water with great splashes. Together they swam under the Blue and Lavender Moons. Ferns overhung the water, their fronds tipped by glimmering bubbles. Trees and underbrush filled the dell; beyond it, mountains rose into the darkened sky. Shannon and Varielle played in the moonlight as they swam.

  Later they lay under the whispering ferns, bare skin against bare skin, their arms and legs entangled. That night, a prince of the stars joined with a Blue Dale Archer, a woman born to the dreaming, misty blue of another universe.

  On a breezy day that blew red dust across the sky, the threehundred-and-sixteenth class of cadets graduated from the Dieshan Military Academy and received commissions as Jagernaut Quaternaries.

  Sixteen of the graduates had spent four years advancing to this moment; the seventeenth had taken two. Sixteen had racked up no more than the usual number of demerits; the seventeenth had broken the record. Four graduates received honors, twelve didn’t, and the seventeenth would have, except her probation forbade that distinction.

  Sixteen had trained in battle simulations.

  The seventeenth had fought in combat.

  Sixteen had trained to use the Kyle web.

  The seventeenth had halted its collapse—and in doing so, saved an interstellar empire from defeat.

  So it was that the Dieshan Military Academy graduated the smartest, most versatile, and worst-behaved cadet in its history.

  Soz sat with the other seniors in a quadrangle bordered by a colonnade of arches. The white flagstones under their chairs glinted with mica and a mosaic of the J-Force insignia, a soaring Jag. A stage faced the audience and their families and friends sat in risers around the plaza. The officers on the stage were impressive in black and gold Jagernaut dress uniforms—Fleet blue, Army green, ASC khaki—all the instructors who had trained the cadets. Commandant Blackmoor sat at the front, with Secondary Tapperhaven on one side and Lt. Colonel Dayamar Stone on the other.

  One man drew attention above all others.