Carnelians

by Catherine Asaro

  Well, fine. The Skolian Assembly had given him the impossible, so he would give them the impossible back. He let his voice ring in the amphitheatre. “If our audacious neighbors find pleasure in the concept of such a gathering, let us offer them one of the greatest providence.” In other words, they could meet right here, on Glory, in the Amphitheatre of Providence.

  Cymbals chimed in approving rhythms, and amusement washed over Jaibriol in a great wave. They found his idea a fitting response to the Skolian insolence. Sure, we’ll meet you. Come on over to our house. We slave lords will never let you out again, but that isn’t our problem, is it?

  Here is my response, Jaibriol thought to Kelric across the light years, though his uncle could never pick it up over such a great distance. I haven’t said no; I’ve given it back to you. Find a way to make it work and I’ll do it.

  Ragman Mardock had to leave his post here in the Steward Medical center. A sandstorm was coming. He needed to move his family into the safe-rooms deep under their house, where they could ride out the fury of the wind-whipped desert. His shift as the operator for offworld communications had four hours to go, but everyone was leaving, hurrying home before the sand blizzard hit.

  As Mardock reached to switch off his console, a holicon appeared above one screen, the image of a hemoglobin molecule.

  “Damn,” Mardock muttered. He flicked the holo and it expanded into a message from some outpost. For flaming sake. It was a request for the analysis of a blood test. Such a trivial message could wait. He started to stand, then hesitated. If they had forwarded the results here instead of doing the analysis themselves, it might be important. He peered at the message—

  It blinked out of existence.

  “What the—?” Mardock banged the screen, a technique that sometimes fixed malfunctions. It didn’t work this time; the message didn’t reappear.

  “You better not break again,” he growled at his console. “I don’t have the time to fix—oh.” A line of glyphs had appeared on the bottom of the screen: Incoming message forwarded to Urbanech Medical Complex on Metropoli.

  “Huh.” He rubbed his chin. His system had no reason to send the request on to another medical facility. The medtechs here could easily analyze those test results.

  Well, no matter. Metropoli was a major center. They could dash this off in no time. It was their problem now, not his. He closed up his station and strode out of his office, relieved nothing important had arrived that could keep him away from home.

  Kelric frowned at the Quis dice strewn across the polished table. Playing solitaire was no good. He kept repeating the same themes. He needed someone else’s input to help him develop strategies. He wished his wife Ixpar was here. Gods, he missed her. Or his son, a truly luminous Quis player. He needed someone of similar brilliance.

  Well, he did have a potential partner who would someday be able to outplay most anyone alive, when she finished learning the game. He touched a tile in the mosaic that bordered the table.

  A woman’s melodious voice rose into the air. “Kelric, is that you?”

  “My greetings, Dehya.” He was glad she was answering her comm. Sometimes she became so immersed in work, she forgot to activate it. “Would you like to play Quis?”

  “You’re working on the summit, yes? The response from the Traders.”

  “That’s right.”

  “All right. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  Kelric grinned. He hadn’t actually expected her to drop everything and come. “Good.”

  Dehya sat back in her chair, her elbows resting on its luster-wood arms. Genuine wood. Kelric liked it because he had grown up on a world without such trees. The space habitat had a few forests, but wood was still a relatively rare commodity.

  “You’re pondering foliage instead of Quis?” Dehya asked.

  “Sorry.” Kelric motioned at the Quis dice all over the table. “This is getting us nowhere.”

  She touched a structure shaped like an open claw of carnelian dice. A ruby sphere and a gold sphere sat inside the claw. “What is this called?”

  “Hawk’s talon,” Kelric said. “If we were playing for money, then whoever closes the claw wins that structure plus whatever is inside of it.”

  “A ruby and a gold sphere? That’s you and me, surrounded by carnelian dice.” She frowned at him. “You can’t be thinking of accepting Jaibriol’s offer to do the summit on Glory.”

  Kelric glared at her. “Of course I am. And if you believe that, I have a resort on a swamp planet I’m trying to sell. Like to buy it?”

  She laughed, a musical sound. “No thanks.”

  “I shouldn’t be annoyed at him. We gave him nothing he could use to convince his people.”

  “He could have turned us down. He didn’t.” Dehya looked over the dice. “Which is pretty much all that this game is telling us.”

  Kelric tapped another structure, a tower of ruby, gold, and topaz dice. It also contained a sphere, this one designed from both ruby and carnelian. “This is called a desert tower.”

  “Is it a high rank?”

  “Medium,” Kelric said. “Except when it’s used in conjunction with other desert structures.”

  “Like a ruby and carnelian sphere.”

  “It could be.” He sat thinking. “That’s the problem, you see. That sphere in that tower could be anything. A desert. A ruby. A carnelian. Which is it?”

  “It’s our game,” Dehya said. “We can make it whatever we want.” After a pause, she added, “Which is why this isn’t working.”

  Kelric glanced up at her. “What do you mean?”

  She waved her hand at the pieces. “We can play this all day long, modeling the summit, but without input from the Traders, we’re going in circles. We need to sit at Quis with Jaibriol Qox.”

  “Sure,” Kelric said wryly. “I’ll page his comm and ask if he’ll drop by for a game.”

  “He wants a solution,” Dehya said. “Without interacting with him, I don’t see how we can find one he thinks his people might accept. But we can’t interact until we solve this problem.” She let out a frustrated exhale. “Which puts us back where we started.”

  Kelric considered the dice. He spoke slowly, as his idea formed. “When you send Qox a response, you should speak from this room. This chair, right next to this table.” He knew the Hightons. They would see the jeweled dice as a deliberate display of wealth. Given the way they were always one-upping one another with such displays, it would make sense to them for Dehya to send such a message.

  Jaibriol would see the Quis patterns.

  Dehya smiled. “Ah, yes. An excellent idea.”

  Lensmark strode into Aliana’s room. “Both of you!” she barked. “Come now! Fast!”

  Aliana jumped up from the chair where she had been reading a holobook, and Red scrambled off the couch where he had been dozing.

  “What’s wrong?” Aliana asked.

  “We’re going under the embassy,” Lensmark said. “We have safe-rooms down there.” With no more ado, she turned and left the room as fast as she had entered.

  Aliana and Red hurried after her. “Why?” Red asked in the same instant that Aliana said, “What happened?” Somewhere off in the embassy, the pound of booted feet echoed.

  “ESComm,” Lensmark said as they strode down the hall.

  “Ah, hell,” Aliana muttered.

  “They’re searching the embassy,” Lensmark said. “We had no warning.”

  “Do they know we’re here?” Aliana asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “They’re searching all Skolian facilities.” Her gauntlet hummed. As she raised it to speak, she motioned Aliana and Red into a side corridor.

  “Lensmark here,” she said into her comm.

  “It’s Quaternary Gainor. Ma’am, they’re headed your way.”

  “We’re almost there,” Lensmark said. “What about Tide?”

  “Already down in safe-room two.”

  “Roger that.” Lensmark pus
hed Aliana into an alcove and stood aside while Red strode into the small area. She followed them across the room and tapped in a code on the wall tiles, her fingers moving so fast, they blurred. With a whir, part of the wall faded into a shimmer.

  “Go!” Lensmark pushed Red through the shimmer.

  Aliana lunged after him, and the shimmer slid on her skin like a film. She entered a circular room with a hatch on the floor that took up most of the cramped space. Lensmark followed, and when she tapped a panel on this side, the wall solidified, leaving no trace of the entrance.

  “Smart,” Red said.

  “I hope so.” Lensmark knelt by the hatch and entered more rapid-fire codes on a panel there. As the hatch hummed and lights blinked around its edges, she grabbed the balled handle and twisted hard. With a hum of well-oiled parts, the hatch spun down into a hole as if it were drilling an entrance. At the bottom, it slid aside, fitting itself into some slot in the wall.

  Lensmark indicated a ladder embedded in the wall of the shaft. “Climb.”

  Aliana nudged Red, and he agilely lowered himself into the hole, gripping the ladder. As he climbed down, Aliana followed and Lensmark came after them. Tubes of cool blue light glowed dimly on the walls. After they were down far enough, the Secondary tapped another panel and the hatch swung back out above their heads. Aliana bit her lip as it rose into place, sealing them into the dim blue darkness. She didn’t feel trapped, confined, buried alive—

  “It’s all right,” Lensmark murmured, though no one had spoken. “You’ll be all right.”

  Aliana wondered if it was always this way around psions, that they knew her moods so well. Not enough privacy. She needed to learn how to guard her mind.

  I swear I’ll learn, she vowed. I’ll do whatever I have to, even be Skolian, if I get to live. She didn’t know who she was swearing to; she’d never thought much about the gods and goddesses of Eube, but if some deity existed, she was making a pact. Get her out of this alive and free, and she’d learn whatever the vile Skolians wanted her to learn. Except maybe they weren’t vile, because she would far rather be with them than the ESComm soldiers tramping through the building above them.

  “Down,” Red said below her.

  She craned her neck to look and saw Red standing below her. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see reasonably well in the eerie blue light. When she reached the bottom of the ladder and stood next to him, he laid his hand on her arm. She swallowed and touched his cheek.

  Red looked around. “Looks like warehouse.”

  Aliana saw what he meant. They were in a large open area, like a metallic cavern lit only by the cool blue lights. “I’d never have guessed this was under the embassy.”

  Lensmark stepped down next to them. “These are secured areas.” She worked on her gauntlet, reading its glowing studs and panels.

  “We safe?” Red asked.

  “You should be.” Lensmark looked up at them. “I have to return to the embassy.”

  Aliana’s shoulders hunched. “You’re going to leave us alone?”

  “You’ll be safer here than up there,” Lensmark said.

  Red regarded the Secondary uneasily. “Not go.”

  “I have to,” Lensmark said. “The ESComm officers know who I am. If I’m nowhere to be found, they’ll be suspicious.”

  It was all happening too fast for Aliana. “What about Tide? Is he down here, too?”

  Lensmark shook her head, her eyes like shadowed pools in the blue light. “He’s in another safe-room. We split you up to decrease their chances of them finding all three of you.”

  A scrape came from across the huge room.

  Lensmark spun around so fast, she blurred. She took off running. She was halfway across the cavern! Aliana had never seen anyone move so quickly, not even Harindor’s best fighters.

  The other side of the cavern was too far away to see clearly, but it looked like its wall had opened into a doorway. Three people stood there, soldiers in dark uniforms with bulky guns, including a big carbine weapon. Aliana had seen Harindor’s men with similar, but these guns were even bigger.

  “Damn,” Aliana said.

  “ESComm,” Red said.

  The blur that was Lensmark suddenly solidified into the Secondary just paces away from the intruders. A man spoke in a deep voice, and in the echoing space of the cavernous room, Aliana heard him even though he was so far away.

  “Secondary Lensmark?” he asked.

  “That’s right.” She walked toward the soldiers, her hands out from her sides. “What can I do for you?” The courteous words were undercut by her curt tone.

  The soldier said, “Have those two come over here.”

  Turning, Lensmark motioned to Red and Aliana. Aliana couldn’t see Lensmark clearly, but she felt the Secondary’s unease as if it were a tangible presence.

  Suddenly Lensmark’s thought burst in Aliana’s mind. Protect yourself! Shield your mind. And Red’s, too, if you can.

  Aliana had no idea how to protect herself or Red, so she just thought, Protect with as much emphasis as she could. She imagined her mental fortress stronger even than before, guarded, fortified, impossible to breach, surrounding both their minds. Then she hid it with a grey mist until it became invisible. No one could see. No one could know.

  Red took her hand. “We stay together.” His eyes looked huge and dark.

  She nodded, squeezing his fingers. “Always.”

  They crossed the cavern and their footsteps rang hollowly on the floor. The air was cool on her face and smelled of metal and old stone. Stale.

  It was a long walk, but finally they came up next to Lensmark. Up close, the soldiers were even more intimidating, two men and one woman with cold faces. Aliana wasn’t sure how to read the insignia on their stark uniforms, but she thought that the man who had spoken to Lensmark was an officer.

  “Who are you?” he asked Aliana.

  “W-ward,” she answered, deliberately struggling over the word.

  He frowned at her. “Ward? Is that your name?”

  “Ward of—of state.” It wasn’t hard to stutter; she was scared enough to make it real. “I fix—things. Carry things. Work with labor-bots. Move, carry, dig.”

  The female soldier looked Red over. “You don’t look strong enough for a labor detail, pretty boy.”

  “I her brother,” Red said.

  “They sound like idiots,” the other soldier muttered.

  “Neither of you has a Skolian accent,” the officer said. “You’re Eubian.”

  Red regarded him with his large eyes. “Me Muze property.”

  Damn! He had just given them away. Almost immediately, though, Aliana realized why. If these soldiers thought they were lying, they would be suspicious, and obviously neither she nor Red could convince anyone they were Skolian.

  “Everyone on this planet is Muze property,” the officer said. He frowned at Lensmark. “Why are you hiding them down here? Did they come with the Razer you’re holding?”

  No. Aliana felt ill. They must have found Tide. Had they killed him?

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lensmark told the officer.

  “Don’t play games,” he said. “We have the Razer upstairs.”

  “This embassy is Skolian territory,” Lensmark said. “Your actions are in violation of the Paris Accord between Eube and Skolia.”

  “Tell it to Admiral Muze,” the officer said curtly. “During your trial for sheltering a traitor.”

  “I have diplomatic immunity,” Lensmark told him. “That protection extends to any refugees who seek shelter within the walls of this mission.”

  The officer snorted. “You have no immunity. You’re military, not a diplomat.”

  She regarded him steadily. “The Paris Accord extends immunity to military personnel attached to an embassy. That includes me, Major. You’re the only one breaking the law.”

  To Aliana’s unmitigated surprise, the officer looked uneasy. The few ESComm soldiers she had
seen in the city had always been striding with authority, always unassailable. These seemed markedly uncomfortable, as if they weren’t sure they could get away with this. This business of embassies was more complicated than she had realized.

  “You’ll have to come with us,” the officer told Lensmark.

  “Where is Ambassador Shazarinda?” Lensmark asked.

  “You can direct whatever questions you wish to our legal authorities.” He spoke to Aliana and Red, slowing down his words. “You will come now. Come. With us.”

  “None of us are leaving this embassy,” Lensmark said sharply. “Good gods, man, do you want to be responsible for such a serious diplomatic incident?”

  The officer flushed, his ruddy face turning even redder. “You should have thought of that before you sheltered a traitor.”

  “If you wish to extradite someone within this chancery,” Lensmark said, “channels exist for negotiating with the diplomatic mission embodied by this embassy.”

  Aliana blinked. She wasn’t even sure what the Secondary had just said.

  The officer scowled at Lensmark. “This embassy may enjoy privileges of extraterritoriality, but you are in the jurisdiction of Lord Orzon Muze and his family, who own everything on this planet, including the embassy. That’s Eubian law, Secondary, and you’re in Eubian territory.”

  “We won’t agree to leave,” Lensmark said. “Do you plan on dragging us out? Shooting us?”

  The officer pushed his hand through his hair, his face strained. “We’ll contact Lord Orzon. And you will come with us, or we’ll drag all three of you.”

  It was all Aliana could do to keep from clenching her fists. At least no one was paying much attention to her or Red. That was fortunate, because if Red came to the notice of Lord Orzon’s father, Admiral Muze, who still owned Red, they would be in even deeper trouble.

  The soldiers took them up to the embassy through a chute similar to the one they had come down. As they walked through the wide halls above, Aliana snuck a closer look at their captors. All three had reddish eyes, like Caul, her stepfather. They made her queasy, as if they were a void that could have suffocated her if she hadn’t protected herself. Their intense focus on Lensmark made her suspect they knew the Secondary was a psion. Aliana wanted to expand her mental fortress to include Lensmark, but that would mean dropping her defenses, revealing that she and Red were psions. Lensmark had told her to protect them both. And Red was so vulnerable. He had no idea how to shield his mind. Maybe it was true, what she had heard, that Aristo bred providers that way, so the Aristo could feel their pain more easily. And these were the “exalted beings” she was supposed to worship? What garbage.