Strength in numbers. If enough slaves simply stop working, they could cripple the empire’s economy in a matter of days.
Symeon nodded. “I’ll admit, you’ve piqued my interest. I see freedom for our people, and I want it. But you’re talking about overturning a thousand years of ingrained culture and stealing away the Shorvexan way of life in the process.”
“You are star born, are you not?” Fang asked.
“I am.”
“We all are in a way.” Fang held out one of his hands, the skin mottled with age spots and wrinkles. “The first Luxing ever raised on this planet were born from the same progenitor ships that birthed you.”
Symeon tried to school his expression to hide his doubt, but by Fang’s indulging smile, he failed. “Is that something you read in one of your ancient, fragmented histories?”
“No,” Fang said. “It is a truth proven by science. Every cell in our bodies contains the blueprints necessary to build a Luxing. They are called —”
Genes .
“—genes, and they make us both our overall species and our individual selves.”
Symeon jerked in surprise when his thoughts supplied the unfamiliar word before Fang uttered it. Had the old man said it earlier in the conversation? He didn’t think so. They hadn’t been talking about blood and heredity before now.
“Is something wrong?” Fang asked, watching Symeon’s face with concern.
“I’m fine. Fine. The word sounds familiar somehow.”
“I’d be surprised if you ever heard it. We know little enough about genes except that all members of our species carry certain ones that mark us as part of the same family.” Fang met Symeon’s gaze. “And the Shorvex share them with us.”
“Czarina told me something like that,” Symeon said. “She has the princess convinced. I’m not so certain I believe it. The Shorvex look so different.”
“On the surface, perhaps. Underneath, we are the same. The Shorvex buried the study of genes eons ago to hide our shared kinship. Can you imagine that? Expunging an entire branch of science in order to excuse your desire to enslave your cousins. Who knows what discoveries they missed by making that choice?”
Discoveries made long ago and lost twice over.
“Symeon, you box, yes?” A sweat-soaked Viktor called from inside the cage. “Come spar a bit. Show us what you know.”
When had the voice in Symeon’s head separated from his conscious thoughts? For weeks now he had misjudged it as part of his own thinking, but was it? More and more it felt disconnected from him like an appendage that had begun moving on its own without any direction from him. But how could that be? His brain was his brain. Any ideas that passed through it must belong to him no matter how foreign they might seem. Right?
Not every thought.
“Symeon?” Fang sounded worried. “You look pale. How do you feel?”
“He feels like getting some old-fashioned exercise,” Czarina said. “Come on, Sym, I promise I won’t kick your ass like I did last time.”
The men in the cage laughed while Symeon shivered, his eyes gone wide. He couldn’t think for worrying that the words and images he saw inside his skull belonged to someone else.
“Join us, Symeon!” Viktor shouted.
“I—I haven’t the clothes for sparring. And I don’t see any gloves.”
“We’ll practice open-handed the way the ancients did it.” Viktor pushed the cage door open. “I’ve never boxed in my life. Show me a few moves, eh?”
Anything to take his mind off his...mind. “Okay, a few rounds.”
Symeon kicked off his shoes and dropped his suit coat on the mat. In his stocking feet, he squared up with Viktor. The shorter Luxing grinned at him the way a street hustler grins at his next mark. Symeon recognized that look from a thousand matches in Luxing boxing clubs across the duchy.
“Boxing rules, right?” Symeon asked.
Maybe for a minute or two. Don’t trust this guy.
Symeon mentally shut the voice down as brutally as he could, willing it to disappear forever. He waited a moment to see if it would return while he and Viktor bowed to begin their match.
No voice.
Symeon’s relief lasted all of five seconds before Viktor rushed him. He rammed his shoulder into Symeon’s hips while simultaneously wrapping both arms low about his legs. Taken completely by surprise, Symeon’s back and head slammed on the mat. The concussion stole his breath and left him seeing stars.
The instant Symeon fell, Viktor scrambled across his prone form to press a meaty forearm across his throat, further cutting off his air supply. In desperation, Symeon attempted to push Viktor off him, but the other man must have expected it. He performed a dazzling spin move that positioned him on Symeon’s side, nullifying his punches.
Though totally out of his fighting element, especially with his fists out of play, Symeon knew combat. The style might differ, but he had faced hundreds of men in fights over the years, and one thing he knew about fighting, never let the other guy execute his game plan. Ignoring his burning lungs, he tried to think clearly. Viktor wouldn’t have gotten into this side position without an idea of what to do next. From what Symeon had seen, the fighters weren’t allowed to punch one another in the face, so that left his free arm as the next best target. Symeon hurriedly squeezed a handful of Viktor’s uniform collar.
When, as predicted, Viktor sought to attack Symeon’s arm, he found it immovable due to the taller man’s grip.
Viktor laughed. “Very good!”
Symeon smiled, pleased with himself.
Viktor kicked off the floor like a rocket, breaking Symeon’s grip in the process, and spun him half around. He latched onto Symeon’s back with all four limbs before he knew what had happened. Viktor snaked an arm around Symeon’s neck almost faster than he realized and alarm bells went off in his head. He didn’t know the name of this move, but he had seen one of the other men cinch it on his opponent earlier. That man had passed out in seconds.
Symeon reached for Viktor’s hand in an awkward attempt to stop the hold before Viktor could sink his elbow beneath Symeon’s chin.
No, fool! Shrug your shoulders first.
Without thinking, Symeon followed the voice’s advice. Viktor’s arm locked around him, but not at the neck. It instead squeezed against his chin and around his jaw—painful yes, but survivable.
Now drop your chin and push up on his elbow. Hard!
Symeon did so and slipped almost easily from Viktor’s grasp. He bounded forward, rolled, and gained his feet all in one smooth motion.
“Outstanding!” Fang clapped and cheered and rattled the cage with the flat of one hand.
“How did you know to escape that?” Czarina asked, a strange, almost respectful look in her eye.
“I don’t know,” Symeon stammered, momentarily and rather irrationally afraid she had somehow heard the voice in his head. “I just did.”
Viktor, still sitting on his knees, grinned up at Symeon. “You haven’t been taking illegal classes now have you, Seneschal?”
Symeon shook his head. He wanted to leave immediately. He needed to be alone with no watchful eyes on him. “I have to go.”
“You’ll think about our discussion?” Fang asked as Symeon scooped up his shoes and jacket and headed for the exit.
“Yes!” Symeon hit the door at speed, the bulkhead steel cold through his socks.
“We all want the same thing, Symeon,” Fang called after him. “We all want peace.”
No. Some of us want freedom more.
* * * * *
Chapter 13
Symeon’s small room lay deep within the Emperor Nikolai, eight decks below Kavya’s own. Due to the number of extra bodies aboard, including the many royals and their personal attendants, most Luxing were berthed three and four to a room. By luck, and because his assigned room amounted to little more than a utility closet, Symeon had received a single roommate, a bursar named Fedor who belonged to Baron Andrey Shamirov.
Symeon knew next to nothing about the man, having met him in passing that afternoon while dropping off his luggage. He seemed reserved—content to pass their time aboard ship without speaking. That would have suited Symeon well enough if he wasn’t losing his mind.
He crashed through the door to their shared berth and found Fedor propped on the bottom bunk reading a holo novel. The bespectacled man looked up in surprise at the noise, but merely nodded when he recognized Symeon and went back to reading.
“Fedor,” Symeon grasped one end of the bed, his knuckles white with strain. “I realize this is asking a lot, and I wouldn’t do it except in extremis , but I must ask you to leave the room for at least an hour—perhaps two.”
“What’s this about?” Fedor looked cautious as he sat up. His position as bursar, even to a duke, ranked far lower than seneschal to the grand duke’s heir. Nonetheless, he looked ready to argue. “It’s late, and I have work early tomorrow.”
Sweat trickled down Symeon’s lower back and off his forehead into his eyes. He felt like a man on fire. Enunciating each word with care, he said, “I understand it’s late, and I’m sorry for that, but if you don’t leave in the next ten seconds, I’m going to beat you to death with that holo comm.”
Fedor hesitated for perhaps half a second before he whipped his coverlet aside and shoved his bare feet into a pair of well-worn house slippers, his gaze never leaving Symeon. Dressed only in his short clothes and a ratty robe, he opened the steel door and looked back over one shoulder. “Where should I go?”
“I don’t give a shit where you go! Get out!”
Fedor disappeared like a rabbit into its warren, slamming the door behind him.
Symeon knew he would regret that later. He thought about chasing poor Fedor down to apologize, but doing so would probably frighten the little man to death. Besides, he had other concerns.
He stood before the room’s single mirror which reflected his image from the waist up. His black hair stood up like a disheveled mountain range on his head. His color, usually dark, had drained away leaving him as blanched as an old vegetable.
He didn’t care. How he looked outside wouldn’t matter a whit if he lost his mind. He leaned close to the mirror, gazed into his own eyes. “Who are you?”
Nothing.
Symeon drew a breath and laughed at his mirror twin, the sound just this side of manic. What had he expected? Some demon to usurp his body like in a sim game? A new face to appear over his real one all sharpened fangs and warts and yellow eyes? Perhaps he was losing his mind, just not in the way he had thought. The Wuxia, Czarina, even Kavya wanted him to turn against all he had ever known. Not just his upbringing on the farm, but five years of training as a seneschal. No wonder his mind felt as fragile as spider webs. He stood on the verge of tossing a lifetime of good service onto a trash heap of bad ideas.
That was why his mind rebelled. It was his unconscious way of fighting against the temptations in his life. He had prepared himself for the hardships of duty, for managing an estate in every particular. But nothing had prepared him for betrayal, disloyalty, and the breaking of his most deeply held oaths at the behest of the princess he was sworn to obey.
Tears welled at the corners of Symeon’s eyes. Yes, it was treachery that had so injured his brain. It was Kavya, misguided or not, who had first introduced the dissonance he now suffered. She was to blame for this. He should never have encouraged her. He should have turned emperor’s evidence against her over to Ivan and Grand Duke Alexei.
NO!
Symeon reeled back from the mirror, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. The word had boomed through his head with such force he felt sure it must have cracked his skull with the impact. In trepidation, he bent back to the mirror.
“Who is speaking in my head?”
I AM YUDI.
Light exploded behind Symeon’s eyes. At first, he saw colors—variations of red, purple, gold—bursting forth and then flowing in every direction without a coherent form. Over time, the colors merged, swirled together, and coalesced into images like the ones Symeon had viewed before, except brighter, more real, tangible in ways his thoughts could not grasp, and yet he understood.
You grok.
Without knowing anything, Symeon realized what he—saw/heard/touched/tasted/smelled—told the history of his people. Not the Luxing, exactly, but—
Yes, the Luxing. And the Shorvex. And the Romans. And the hominids who moved out of Africa on two legs.
Hundreds of thousands of years passed through him—light through a pane of glass, split by a prism, refracted in a sea of learning. For one exquisite moment, he held it all in his mind, the great epic of his species upon a small, rocky planet called Earth. Slowly, in ones and twos, ships rose from Earth, spreading to the stars. Symeon’s vision could not follow them all.
Only one.
The Luxing, made up mostly of people from a land once called China, left Earth seeking new horizons. They settled a planet they called Heritage in their now ancient language. There they prospered as never before, evolving a new society from the old.
At some point, unknown to Yudi, his kind first arrived on Heritage—artificial beings created by alien hands and somehow lost in the void of space for eons without measure. Embraced by the Luxing, the AIs became part of their human fabric, citizens of their shared culture, and true friends. And then—
Cataclysm .
An orphaned planet, a gas giant, shot through the Heritage system like a wayward neutron fired through an intact atom. Forced to flee their longtime home, more than a hundred thousand Luxing boarded AI-designed stasis ships meant to protect them on their trip to a new refuge, a pristine planet the humans named Phoenix, for it represented their chance to rise from the flames of ruin.
The images grew suddenly clearer, and Symeon realized he was viewing the firsthand, laser-sharp experiences of Yudi’s artificial mind cut into his synapses like tractor-gouged furrows.
Shorvexan pirates first took then scuttled scores of the Luxing vessels, executing the sleeping adults while gathering the children and infants in as few ships as possible. During this massacre, Yudi’s siblings, the AIs who had for so many centuries communed with the Luxing, made the heart-wrenching decision to destroy their unique essences rather than allow the Shorvex to learn of their existence.
While the Shorvex counted their spoils, Yudi infiltrated their computer networks, not with any hope of stopping them—he could not—but for the reason of understanding them and why they would so abuse fellow humans.
Like the Luxing, the Shorvex originated on Earth. Their blood largely traced back to Russia, Belarus, and other satellite states. During the time of a great diaspora, which saw the Luxing settle a distant planet, the Shorvex followed suit. Unlike the Luxing, the Shorvex colony suffered early conquests of power that saw dozens of governments rise and fall over the course of two centuries. As its nations grew, the fighting intensified until the warring factions stooped to using nuclear, biological, and even genetic weapons against one another. More than a century of continual war left the planet’s survivors mutated and starving, and the planet itself inhospitable to life.
Unwelcome in almost any civilized star system, the remnants of the Shorvex people became space faring vagabonds—homeless, friendless, and diseased. No friends to warmongers, even the Bith, the great builders, rarely allowed Shorvex ships to pass their gates, and then only for exorbitant prices. As a people, they were teetering on the edge of extinction when one of their scout ships discovered the sleeping Luxing and their choice target home.
Silver and blue skin, a byproduct of their ancestors’ horrific wars, had become the norm amongst the Shorvex. Even after they cured the mutations that plagued their civilization, they retained that unique coloring. In a bid to avoid like disasters in the future, the first Shorvexan emperor, Nikolai Pravotin, declared the study of genetics forbidden under penalty of death.
“Kavya was right,” Symeon whispered. His throat felt swollen and his
head hurt, but he couldn’t seem to fully wake. Not that he cared. He had so many questions. “How did you survive, Yudi? How did you contact me?”
Unlike his siblings, Yudi chose to download as much of his consciousness as possible into one of the Shorvex’s coveted Luxing children. While he could never copy his entire self into so small a biological package, he hoped to at least give the child—Symeon—and the Luxings born into captivity, some sliver of hope in the future.
The Shorvexan royals divvied up the Luxing children between them, calling them star born. Some they birthed immediately, using nanny bots the Luxing had brought for just that purpose to raise them. Those became the first generations of Luxing slaves. Others, like Symeon, they left aboard the ships, their rarity making them highly prized, though in truth they differed not at all from children born to mothers on Phoenix.
“You are an artificial intelligence?” Symeon whispered.
I am a sliver—a minute copy of the consciousness that was Yudi.
“And you are inside my mind?”
This frightens you?
“Yes.”
Why? What has changed? I have always been a part of you. I would not exist otherwise.
“If that’s true, then why didn’t you speak to me? Why couldn’t you have informed me about these lies before now?”
I tried.
New images sparked inside Symeon’s head. Unlike those Yudi had shown him before, these Symeon recognized as his own. He saw his adoptive parents, much younger than they looked today, and the farm, and the house where he grew up. With the images came memories. He saw himself screaming in terror, his parents unable to console him. He tried to explain his fear, except he was too young to articulate it. His mind had fixated on images of death and destruction—on Shorvexan soldiers murdering Luxing while they slept.
Salvage Mind (Salvage Race Book 1) Page 11
